If you’re trying to learn French, you might already know how difficult it can be. The French language has some weird rules, uses some weird letters (do you know what a trema is?) and often sounds confusing. Yet, instead of feeling overwhelmed, you should embrace these weird facts and bring them up at your next dinner party! Here are 10 funny facts about the French language.
Fun Facts About The French Language
The shortest French word with every vowel is oiseau
There is only one French word with the letter ù!
Still, this letter has its very own key on the French computer keyboard.
The words quatorze, quinze, and simple don’t rhyme with any other French words.
You might want to avoid using them in your next poem.
Saint-Remy-en-Bouzemont-Saint-Genest-et-Isson is the French town with the longest name.
It is located in Marne, the North-Eastern part of France.
As opposed to Y, which is the shortest town name.
It is located in Somme. It might be complicated for the inhabitants to fill in online forms…
Yeux (eyes) is the plural of Oeil (eye), which makes it the only French word that starts with a different letter when in plural
Ever wondered which letter is most used in French? It’s e, recurring at a frequency of 14,7%
Meanwhile, French people don’t really use the letter ï, which is recurring at only 0,005%.
Maybe they don’t use the words maïs (corn) or aïoli (mayonnaise with garlic) enough…
Do you want to hear a sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet?
In French, it would be Allez porter ce vieux whisky au juge blond qui fume un havane. This means “Take this old whiskey to the blond judge who is smoking a cigar”.
The longest word in the French dictionary is anticonstitutionnellement (25 letters) but the longest word of all time is the full chemical name for thiamine: aminométhylpyrimidinylhydroxyéthylméthythiazolium (49 letters)
Do you know any other facts about the French language? We wrote an article about more fun facts!
