French is often referred to as the language of romance.  That’s why a French dictionary may be of use.  Or it could be just to translate sentences into French, or find out what French words mean.

A French dictionary is common for people who study the language.  Such a dictionary would have English words translated into French and French words translated into English.  People find it useful.

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.

A French dictionary has many words.  Bread heated over some kind of flame is toast.  There are a lot of different toasts.  These include French toast which is called eggy bread parts of the United Kingdom.  The French call it pain perdu.  Bread is coated with egg batter then fried.  People it it with fruit.

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 call it en l’honneur de.

Another word found in the French dictionary is bread. Pain is the literal French translation. 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 in French is bread soup.

In a French dictionary word restaurant would be Café. We use that word in English as well as we use the word restaurant. 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.

As you can see a French dictionary as more uses than just for love.

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