Some mistakes are easy to make... when you’re speaking French
By angelaluke, Apr 9 2016 03:57PM
Wednesday’s scripted dialogues at the French conversation groups threw up some imaginative endings when people were faced with the situation that their payment card had been refused. We had all sorts of scenarios but the most useful phrase seemed to be ‘je me suis trompé(e) de code’ meaning ‘I got the code wrong’. The grammar here is a reflexive verb in the past tense but the best way forward is to learn the set phrase, ‘je me suis trompé(e) de...’ as you can then add any noun. In English we have many ways of expressing this: ‘je me suis trompé(e) d’adresse’ means ‘I got the wrong address’, and ‘je me suis trompé de ville’ could mean ‘I went to the wrong town’. ‘Je me suis trompé(e)’ on its own means that you made a mistake. However, ensure you use the reflexive pronoun, otherwise you are deceiving, betraying or cheating on someone, instead of making a mistake. So, ‘elle a trompé son mari’ means that she had an affair, which I guess is still getting the husband wrong in a way! And lastly, there is a very similar verb: ‘tremper’ which means ‘to soak’, so ‘je suis trempé(e) jusqu’aux os’ means that you are soaked to the bone. A bientôt, et ne vous trompez pas de verbe :) A bientôt, Angela
