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French is considered the language of love.  That may be why people have an interest in a French dictionary.  It could also be simply to learn a little bit about French words.

A French dictionary was often a standard tool of a high school or college French student. Such a dictionary would have English words translated into French and French words translated into English. It’s easy to see why this would be useful for someone trying to learn the language.

As the Internet developed more and more French dictionaries went online. This included translation services such as AltaVista and more recently Google.  These can be used to translate sentences or entire blocks of text.  That can be very useful when having conversations online with someone from another country, or when translating a document into another language.

Here are some words from a French dictionary.  Toast in English is a piece of bread made crisp by exposure to dry heat.  There are a variety of types of toast.  Of course French toast must be mentioned.  The French phrase for this is pain perdu.  It’s egg covered bread fried in a pac.  It can be topped with things like syrup and strawberries.

But in a French dictionary the word toast would be a phrase delivered in honor of something. We’re familiar with this when the best man toasts the bride and groom at a wedding reception. The French phrase is en l’honneur de.

A French dictionary will contain the word bread.  That’s pain.  It does not refer to a loaf of bread or a slice of bread, but more specifically to a loaf of soap, or ice.  Panade is the word for bread soup.

In a French dictionary word restaurant would be Café. Cafe is also an English word.  A restaurateur in French is a person who owns a restaurant.  In that language it’s a masculine noun.

In a French dictionary pomme is a potato. When turned into french fries the French would call it pommes frites. That was once explained on the popular children’s show Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. The phrase pommes de la soupe would be potato soup. If you wanted a baked potato with some cheese on it you might ask for pommes du fromage.

There’s more than romance in a French dictionary.