The French "Déjà" Explained for English Speakers
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2021
- "Woah, déjà vu!" What does the French "déjà" really mean? Discover its most common uses...
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You're probably already familiar with the expression déjà vu... but what does the French adverb "déjà" really mean, and how else can you use it in everyday French conversation? We'll explore all that and more in today's lesson.
Déjà may be a very short word, but it’s packed with meanings and subtlety! You don’t have to learn all of the meanings, but learning a few idiomatic expressions will help you a lot. Let's explore some of the most common uses in modern French.
Take care and stay safe.
😘 from Grenoble, France.
Géraldine
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I speak French reasonably well but I really appreciate the range in the manner a presentation of this lesson. Excellent teacher!
Am intermediate French , and I totally agree. I appreciate the range, plus how slow, then moral phase of the pronunciation is / are! Bravo.
J'apprends tellement beaucoup avec toi... Merci Géraldine ! (J'ai déjà appris beaucoup avec toi ! C'est trop bien !) 😃 💙⚪️❤️
Merci Geraldine! J’ai jamais entendu une explication de ce mot. La lumière fut!
I was going to be a huge smart alec and say, "pfff, what? it means already - easy!". But I'm so glad I watched, because the word has so much more meaning!
Merci, Géraldine! Votre vidéos m'aider tellement. Je peu demander sur une question? Peut être une thème de video. Sur le question d'utilisation do 《Ceci, cela, celui...》 ça me laisse beaucoup perdu. Et merci pour l'aide chaque semaine
Your lessons are priceless!!!
Thank you
Merci beaucoup j'écoute toujours les français l'utilisent très différemment
I love 💕 your videos! They offer such excellent, practical topics with superb explanations and examples. As a novice, I appreciate that you say the words or sentences slowly so a learner can clearly hear the proper pronunciation. Merci beaucoup! 💕
I feel like there’s an idea behind the word that applies to all of these examples, even if we translate it different ways. It’s about putting one concept before another. It can be before in time, before in priority, etc. But all the examples seem to put one thing before another.
merci cherie
Amazing! thank you
excellent video. Didnt know all these uses for deja
Thanks!
Merci Géraldine !
C’est tres interesant and informative !!
Can I use "déjà" in the same way we say, "come again?" in English when we aren't sure about what some just said to us?
Hello! No you can't. Only using "déjà?" would only mean "already?".
In french, to say "come again?", we would say "Pardon? / Comment?" or "Vous pouvez répéter? Tu peux répéter?".
Hope that helps :)
@@linaz4223 oui, maintenant je comprends ! Merci beaucoup !!
Yes I also love the French language but it's a bit difficult. Imagine a beginner at an old age🤔😢. Here I come! 😂
Balaraba: Jamais trop tard!
Bonne Chance !
De you have a video about amener and emmener? I can't understand the difference between them!
Brilliant - I would for starters add 5) Déjà, tu me parles pas comme ça. 6) On peut déjà entrer, on verra....
But she mentioned these two examples, didn't she?
@@manfredneilmann4305 Yes but in the recap only 4 were suggested... it is for you to decide what to do with the others.
Hi Geraldine. I have always found your channel very instructive. Thank you for your fine work over the years. However, there is an item of vocabulary which gives me problems and seems to be used in various situations. 'Coup de Patte'. Could it be some kind of reprimand or slap to change or encourage you to change your approach to something. Thank you in advance. Paul
Ms. Geraldine, is the phrase "déjà entendu" occasionally, or ever used?
I always learned (Dutch school) that “j’ai” rhymes with “thé”, but I hear you pronounce it as rhyming with “lait”. Is that a regional pronunciation? It would take me a lot of effort to unlearn at this stage.
Hi there! "J'ai" definitely rhymes with "lait" (not "thé"). Good luck adapting your pronunciation :)
I think that you are correct, Ploon72 (if we can trust wiktionary): "Traditionnellement prononcé \e\, mais le son peut devenir \ɛ\ sous l’influence du contexte."
fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/ai
Super video!!
Est ce qu'on peut dire "tu es jamais allé à Nice?" Pour signifier la même chose que "tu es déja allé à Nice"?
Have you ever been to Nice?
I wouldn't. First is like saying "you've never gone to Nice?" whereas the second would like "have you already been to Nice?" I'm not saying everyone would say it like that but that's the way I, an American embedded in French family, have most often heard the difference.
Sorry, at 3:45 I don't understand two words. derivative?? and ordinal??
Is the a and the à pronounced the same way ?
So, if I were to make a GameGrumps reference in French, it would be "Mickey Mouse? Déjà... C'est le Heck quoi ce jeu?"
If you need information, the quote I've attempted is from their Mickey Mousecapade playthrough.
🤣🤣that video scares me
@@karlaflores245 I laughed so hard though, because knowing the amount of horrid things that the Disney brand has done, it makes me think that the very video is literally how Mickey interprets his own game. 🤣 It's a jaded mountain, and not some hill, I'm willing to die on that I hate the way Disney manages business. I have Essay long lists of connections I can rant about.
Really though, was that the correct way to quote it? I literally want to make a French dub of the discussion at this point.
By the coffee machine, I heard one French person ask another if he would like a coffee. He replied "Non, j'en ai déjà eu." Except I think he missed out the "'jà" so it was just "j'en ai dé eu." Did I mishear, or is this another contraction in common use?
It's a mishear :)
Merci bien!
Seulement une question: la phrase "Tu es déjà là?", ne devrait-elle pas être "Es-tu déjà là?", ou "Est-ce que tu es déjà là?"
si, mais quand on parle en français, souvent on fait pas les inversions et tout... on dirait meme "t'es d'ja là ?"
@@astresilver ahh, très bien..merci!
I am sorry for my misspelling. The keyboards can’t type French accents ‘ ^ etc.
I would actually say that instead of all those different meanings, you can just say "already" in English too:
Have you already been to NY?
It's already that.
Now, everyone is there, it's already something/a start.
He speaks French and English, that's already not so bad.
What were we talking about already?
We can already go in and we'll see if there's room for us.
Granted the last two cases (especially the very last one) are more colloquial and therefore different in English.
Jamais also means 'ever' as well as 'never' (and the 'ne': n'y jamais... is what really makes it negative, right?), yet you don't hear: tu es jamais allé a New York? It's always déjà. Strange.
Not sure that jamais ever means “ever”.
“Tu es jamais allé à NY?” is actually short for “Tu n’es jamais allé à NY?” as thé “ne” is frequently dropped in informal settings. This is just the same question as “tu es déjà allé à NY?” but in the negative but jamais = Never.
@@ericlind6581The point with that sentence is that no-one says it. 'Jamais' on it's own really does mean 'ever', look in your dictionary. Think of "à jamais" = for ever, or "plus que jamais" = hardly ever. It's only the 'ne' or another element which makes it negative. Which is what you described above, The dropping of that negative particle makes people think it means only 'never'.
@@baronmeduse i see. However I don’t see the dropping off the « ne » as affecting the perception of the meaning as that is just the French munching their syllables. They drop it with all negations « je sais pas » « je sais pas encore », etc. I would say that I always thought it meant never cause as a stand alone word it means never, « jamais! ». But thanks for enlightening me on the other usages! Merci!!
@@ericlind6581 It's historical, since 'jamais' as a standalone word didn't just mean 'never' previously. E.g: "les forêts étaient plus noirs que jamais" = ...as dark as ever. It's much like the case of 'rien'. Geraldine mentioned the origin of 'rien' as a standalone word meaning 'something' rather 'than nothing' in another video.
The original meanings of jamais are: 'en un temps quelconque' and 'toujours'. In the negative sense it uses the 'ne', which as you said gets dropped, thus obscuring the meaning over time.
There's also the case of things like 'ne t'inquiete pas' being wittled-down to 't'inqiete pas', then 't'inquiete'!
@@baronmeduse well I meant stand-alone as in just saying it by itself “jamais!”. Often when we are learning a foreign language and drink from the firehose we just latch onto the most basic translations we learn and using it as a standalone phrase is that. But it’s interesting that the meaning can digress based on its usage in various phrases.
I'm sure I've viewed this video before (?).