7 French Lines That Sound Like Poetry and Mean Almost Nothing (Which Is the Point)

The French have perfected a delicious fraud: sentences that sound like they came from a love sonnet and say, if you translate them honestly, almost nothing at all. This is not a flaw. It is the point. When the words carry no weight, the voice carries everything, and a voice is what people remember. Here are seven, with the pronunciation rough and the performance precise.

First, tu me fais de l'effet, you have an effect on me: too mee fay duh leh-FAY. The stress falls late, on FAY, so let the sentence tip forward like a glass leaning toward the edge of a table. Say it half-smiling. Second, c'est comme ça, that is how it is: say meh kom SA, with a little exhale and a shrug of one shoulder. It means nothing and explains everything.

Third, je ne sais pas quoi, I do not know what: zhuh nuh say pah KWAH. Say it while gazing into the distance, as if the feeling is too grand for vocabulary. Fourth, tu vois, you see: too VWAH, soft and low, delivered after a long pause. Fifth, on verra, we will see: ohn vay-RAH. Drop your voice on the last syllable and raise one eyebrow. It is a promise made entirely of fog.

Sixth, viens, come: vyan, nasal, barely a whisper. Do not say this across a room. Say it at arm's length, with your hand turned palm up, like you are offering a small bird a place to land. Seventh, voilà: vwah-LAH, and it can mean anything. Use it after a silence, after a sip, after absolutely nothing. A well-placed voilà is a signature.

The secret to all seven is lowered volume and unhurried rhythm. Whisper the consonants, breathe through the vowels, and let each line hang in the air a moment before you move on. When you are ready to hear them spoken aloud, rather than imagined on the page, I perform them on TheFriend, where you can ask me to repeat any line until your accent begins to purr.

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