{"id":6274,"date":"2011-11-18T18:09:22","date_gmt":"2011-11-18T18:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=6274"},"modified":"2011-11-18T18:09:22","modified_gmt":"2011-11-18T18:09:22","slug":"la-douce-lueur-du-crepuscule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=6274","title":{"rendered":"La douce lueur du cr\u00e9puscule"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I discovered that there are many ways to express the concept of soft<\/strong> in French, depending on the context.<\/p>\n

Doux (douce)<\/strong> (\/du\/, \/du\u02d0s\/), from the Latin dulcis<\/em> (soft, smooth, pleasant), is used for:
\n– soft (not rough) skin, hands, hair, fur, silk, towels, fabric or texture
\n– soft (gentle) lights, colours, curves, lines, breezes and rain;
\n– soft (not loud) voices, music and voices
\n– soft (not hard) water
\n– soft (easy) life<\/p>\n

For example
\n– la douce lueur du cr\u00e9puscule (the soft glow of the evening light)
\n– Sa voix se fit plus douce (Her voice grew softer)<\/p>\n

mou (molle)<\/strong> (\/mu\/, \/m\u0254l\/), from the Latin mollis<\/em> (soft), is used for:
\n– soft (not hard) ground, snow, butter, bread<\/p>\n

tendre<\/strong> (\/t\u0251\u0303d\u0281\/), is used for
\n– soft (not hard) wood
\n– soft (kind) heart<\/p>\n

douillet(te)<\/strong> (\/duj\u025b\/) and moelleux(-euse)<\/strong> (\/mw\u025b.l\u00f8\/) are used for:
\nsoft (not hard) beds, cushions and pillows<\/p>\n

Douillet is also used to mean soft, as in not physically tough.<\/p>\n

indulgent(e)<\/strong> (\/\u025b\u0303dyl\u0292\u0251\u0303\/) is used to mean lenient \/ soft.<\/p>\n

If you have a soft spot for someone you could say, ‘j’ai un faible pour qn’.<\/p>\n

To say someone is soft in the sense that they’re emotionally sensitive, the word is sensible<\/strong> (\/s\u0251\u0303sibl(\u0259)\/). For example, Ne sois pas si douillet!, Ne sois pas si sensible! = Don’t be so soft!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I discovered that there are many ways to express the concept of soft in French, depending on the context. Doux (douce) (\/du\/, \/du\u02d0s\/), from the Latin dulcis (soft, smooth, pleasant), is used for: – soft (not rough) skin, hands, hair, fur, silk, towels, fabric or texture – soft (gentle) lights, colours, curves, lines, breezes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,111,10,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-french","category-language","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}