TouteFrance

Faux amis are the bain of anyone learning French, including myself! I’ve been victim to them over the years, ‘actuellement’ probably being one of the ones whose trap I often manage to fall into, but continually manage to forget.

So what’s the difference between ‘actuellement’ and ‘actually’. Well, actually it’s quite a big difference! ‘Actually’ as we know is used when stating a fact, or ‘in fact’. ‘Actuellement’ is used to mean at this moment in time, e.g ‘actuellement j’écoute à la radio’ - I’m listening to the radio at the moment (which I’m doing as I type this). If you wanted to use ‘actually’ as ‘in fact’, you would say ‘en fait’, e.g ‘en fait je vais en vacances demain’ - actually, I’m going on holiday tomorrow (I really am!).

If you’ve been victim to the French faux amis, let me know and I’ll be posting more of them!

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