In this lesson, we study directions in French. Being able to tell or describe directions is a very important skill in any language.
A direction in French is “une direction.” A map is “une carte,” and a street is “une rue.” Let us look at more vocabulary related to direction in French.
The four geographical directions of a compass or “une boussole” in French are as follows:
| east | estm | south | sudm |
| north | nordm | west | ouestm |
And the four main directions right, left, up, and down are as follows:
| right | droite | up | haut |
| left | gauche | down | bas |
To describe the location of an object with respect to another in French, one can use one of the following options:
| above on top (of) | au-dessus de | there | là |
| here | ici | to the left of | à gauche de |
| inside (of) | à l’intérieur (de) | to the right of | à droite de |
| near | près de | far (from) | loin (de) |
| outside | dehors | toward | vers |
| straight ahead | tout droit | under beneath | sous |
“Voici” & “Voilà”
Derived from “ici” (here) and “là” (there), the expressions “voici” and “voilà” in French are used to call the attention to something and are often translated as “here is” or “here are” in expressions.
For example, “Voici le bus” (Here is the bus), “Voici mes questions” (Here are my questions), “Voilà pourquoi” (Here is why), “Voilà” (Here it is), etc.
Other lessons in Level III:
