Language: verbs with multiple meanings, part0

Self-tutoring about languages: the tutor revisits the French verb faire.

I recall, in grade three French class, the teacher indicated that faire means to make, or to do. Of course, she was exactly right. In fact, I don’t recall her being wrong a single time.

Nonetheless, that a verb could mean, at the same time, “to make” yet also “to do,” bothered me. The reason is that, in English, “to make” and “to do” can have very different meanings: you often can’t interchange them. While I never said so, reconciling that faire could mean “to make,” yet also “to do,” troubled me more than anything else I learned at school that entire year. Off and on, I thought about it for years, in the back of my mind.

One day, while I was in eighth grade, a Francophone was visiting our house. My father was a military man, so he knew lots of French Canadians.

Our visitor was relating an anecdote: “I was in the kitchen, doing pancakes for breakfast….” he began. I didn’t hear anything else, because what he’d just said finally reconciled me with what my grade three teacher had taught me five years earlier.

“To him, faire really does mean ‘to make’ or ‘to do’,” I realized: “that’s why an English person wouldn’t say doing breakfast, but a French person will.” I’d believed my French teacher, yet, until then, hadn’t really understood. Suddenly I did: it was a great instant of understanding.

I imagine making numerous future posts about multi-purpose verbs:)