Some people wonder about the difference between the words près and proche. In many cases they are interchangeable, although it is useful to remember that près is an adverb, rendering it invariable, while proche is an adjective, rendering it variable in gender and number. Près also tends to be used to express spatial proximity, while proche tends to be used to express affective, mental, or intellectual proximity. You could say “Le jardin est près du musée” and “Les deux amies sont très proches’’. You could also say “Les deux amies sont près l’une de l’autre”, if they are standing near each other, for instance.

If you’ve studied ballet, some of the following will look very familiar.

Prépositions

Verbs

Noms

Useful Sentences When Asking for Directions in French

You can use the above words in phrases such as these below when asking for directions:

When being given directions, you might hear:

The above sentences are models for ways in which you can ask for things. The directions you ask for will, of course, differ depending on circumstance. For instance, rather than asking if the cathedral in one of the sentences above is to the east of the park, you may want to ask whether it is located to the west. In this case, substitute “à l’ouest” for “à l’est” in the example that is given.

To describe position, the verb être is used quite a bit, e.g., “La fontaine est au centre du parc”, “Est-ce que c’est loin ?”, and “Les toilettes sont en bas”. This reflects the idea of attributing a position to something, in a manner that is descriptive.

The French word for washroom (toilettes) is plural, and verbs for which it is a subject must correspond. This means that to describe a washroom’s position, you would use the third person plural conjugation of être, as we see above. Its synonym, W.C., or waters, is also used in the plural.

In English, the word block is used to mark off sections of a city or town between streets. We say, “Walk two blocks to get to the grocery” or “The subway is three blocks from here”. In French, we tend to use the word rue, which translates into English as street, to measure this distance. You will notice that in France many streets do not follow a grid and that the sections marked off by intersections are a lot less block-like. Although we often use the word rue to measure distances in cities, we can also use pâtés de maisons, and so could translate the first sentence above as “Marchez trois pâtés de maisons pour aller à la supérette”. The second sentence can easily be translated using the word rue, i.e., “Le métro est à trois rues d’ici”.

A bureau de tabac or, simply, a tabac is translated into English as tobacco shop, but it sells much more than tobacco. It is possible to not even realize where its name comes from because there are so many other reasons to go to a tabac, such as to buy newspapers, magazines, stamps, or chocolate bars. Some tabacs even have counters where you can drink coffee, although these are often referred to as cafés-tabacs.

Happy navigation and do not hesitate to ask for directions. I’ve found people in large cities as well as small towns to be very helpful to people who are visiting. If you wonder whether the people walking past live in the area, chances are that if they are walking a dog, they are local. I also notice that when people ask me for directions, there are often two or three other people who are eager to help the person asking, so if anything, you may have too many people who are willing to help out rather than the opposite.

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