My understanding, before all this French stuff started, was that droite was right and gauche was left. I was happy with that knowledge. Then I started studying French and encountered the concept of gender as applied to things, and to the adjectives that described those things. Okay, I can handle that. A few days ago, I started the Rosetta Stone sequence on directions. Turn to the right. Tournez à droite. Turn to the left. Tournez à gauche. Okay, I think, apparently these aren't gender sensitive. Go straight ahead. Allez à droit. What? What happened to the trailing e? Le jouet est à côté de son pied droit. C'est la main gauche. Okay, apparently they are gender sensitive, since Pied is masculine and droit has no trailing e, while Main is feminine and gauche does have the trailing e. But what about that droit-without-the-e?
So I look it up on the web. One person on Yahoo authoritatively says:
J'écris avec ma main droite.
I write with my right hand.
* droite means right (as in right or left)
Le magasin est du côté droit de la rue.
The store is on the right-hand side of the street.
*droit means right-hand (used in directions)
Explanation: if you say droit, you are typically speaking of something such as your hand or foot, where as droite is right-hand side. I know it is confusing, but I hope that this helps.
I write with my right hand.
* droite means right (as in right or left)
Le magasin est du côté droit de la rue.
The store is on the right-hand side of the street.
*droit means right-hand (used in directions)
Explanation: if you say droit, you are typically speaking of something such as your hand or foot, where as droite is right-hand side. I know it is confusing, but I hope that this helps.
Source(s): I'm a native French speaker.
and I think what? On top you say droite for right hand, but below you say droit means talking about your hand or foot. (The person who asked notices this, too) . I keep looking. Finally, I get the bright idea to look them up in my little dictionary. Be damned. 'Right' can be droit or droite, depending on whether you're talking direction or 'side' (I won't even mention that it could be 'as in my right to do something'). The trailing e doesn't mean squat. Just for confirmation, I look up gauche. And yes: there is no 'gauch'. Just 'gauche'. No gender specifics at all.
Right?
2 comments:
This hurts my head to just think about it... and you! You're studying it!!
In the movie version of The Untouchables, Al Capone walks around a huge circular table of his minions and says, rhetorically, Enthusiasms, enthusiasms... What are mine? What draws my admiration? What is that which gives me joy?
French is mine. At least for the moment.
(Of course, Capone then beats a man to death with a baseball bat. Depending on how French goes, day to day, I might look into whether suicide by baseball bat is possible)
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