> In the French language, what's one way of saying "Hello"?And the answer: bonjour. Photo courtesy: Emma JacobsThere are multiple ways of greeting someone inFrench. "Bonjour" translates literally to "Good day," while "Bonsoir" translatesto "Good evening." Another common greeting is "Salut!" which is an informal wayof saying "Hi!"French and English share a number of directly translatable phrases, as well asphrases that look and mean the same in both languages. While French is a Romancelanguage descended from Latin with German and English influences, English is aGermanic language with Latin and French influences, thus the languages fall intomany similarities. In fact, about 45% of the English vocabulary originates fromthe French language!Interestingly, the two languages share many false cognates: words that look thesame but have entirely different meanings. For example, while formidable inFrench means "great" or "terrific," it has nearly the polar opposite meaning inEnglish, meaning instead "dreadful" or "fearsome." While library is understoodas a curated source of books and information, in French it is a bookstore. The linguistic overlaps in French and English are the result of many years ofcultural exchange and the evolution of two languages of similar origin, though,some phrases so aptly describe a phenomenon that the phrase is directly adoptedfrom the other. In English, we use déjà vu to describe the sensation ofrecalling a past event, which translates quite literally to "already seen."Conversely, French "le week-end" is used to describe exactly that. To learn more about the French-English lexical similarities, check out the videobelow.