Verb drill
From bagnole to voiture: practise neutral French word choices
Turn familiar French nouns into neutral wording. Practise bagnole, bouquin, fric and flic while keeping the same people, objects and details.
- B1
- 6 answers
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In short
Choose a neutral noun for the same thing: une bagnole → une voiture, un bouquin → un livre. Keep the surrounding facts, including adjectives, amounts and places. Read the whole phrase: argent means money in one sentence and silver in another.
Yellow the idea to rememberBlue French to learn
| Familiar | Neutral | Meaning to keep |
|---|---|---|
| une bagnole | une voiture | a car |
| un bouquin | un livre | a book |
| du fric | de l’argent | money |
| un flic / une flic | un policier / une policière | one police officer |
| des fringues | des vêtements | clothes |
| des godasses | des chaussures | shoes |
Same objects, neutral labels
Find:
How do you choose a neutral French word?
Sa vieille bagnole est devant la gare. → Sa vieille voiture est devant la gare.
His old car is outside the station.
Both versions keep the age and location. The familiar noun itself simply names the car.
Replacing une flic with la police changes the focus from one woman to an institution. Use une policière to keep the individual. Similarly, du fric becomes de l’argent: the article changes because argent starts with a vowel.
1 · Replace only the familiar noun; keep its number
- Sa bagnole est rouge. → Sa est rouge. (neutral noun; keep the same gender and number)
- J’ai pris deux bouquins. → J’ai pris deux . (neutral noun; keep the same gender and number)
- Il garde son fric. → Il garde son . (neutral noun; keep the same gender and number)
- Une flic arrive. → Une arrive. (keep one female officer)
- Ses fringues sont propres. → Ses sont propres. (neutral noun; keep the same gender and number)
- Ces godasses sont neuves. → Ces sont neuves. (neutral noun; keep the same gender and number)
A word pair has a boundary
Elle porte une bague en argent.
She is wearing a silver ring.
Here the noun names the metal. The familiar money word fric would change the meaning.
In un roman policier, policier describes a kind of novel. The person word flic belongs in a different construction. Match the meaning and the grammatical job before you replace the word. For full-sentence changes involving reasons, results and uncertainty, continue with the related register-rewrite guide.