In today’s lesson we’ll take a look at the French names for “grandmother”. In French, the word for grandmother is grand-mère. However, people commonly call their grandmas mamie, mémé and mémère. Indeed, I remember using both of these terms when I was an exchange student in Douai, France in 1992. Today I’ve included a very touching photo at the bottom of the post. Allons-y mamie! (let’s go grandma!).
grand-mère
grandmother
Grand-Mère: Grandmother / Grandma in French
Word origin
The French word grand-mère (grandmother) is comprised of the adjective grand (great) and the noun mère (mother). Grand comes form grandis (grand, advanced in age) in Latin and mère comes from māter in Latin. Two additional words worth noting here are: Grand-mère maternelle (maternal grandmother) and grand-mère paternelle (paternal grandmother).
Example sentences
This first example sentence uses the verb naître (to be born). In the passé composé (a commonly used French past tense), naître uses the auxiliary verb être (to be). This lesson on our site covers prepositions for places and this lesson covers how to say the date in French.
Ma grand-mère est née à Paris en 1942 (mille neuf cent quarante-deux).
My grandmother was born in Paris in 1942.
This next sentence uses the verb aller (to go) for expressing “going” to grandma’s house. However, we could just as easily have used the verb passer (to pass by). In this lesson we cover the French preposition chez (at the home of). This sentence is autobiographical. When was an exchange student I used to go across to street to see Mamie and she’d give me a candybar.
J’adore Mamie ! Elle me donne toujours des bonbons quand je vais chez elle.
I love grandma! She always gives me candy when I go to her house.
For this next example sentence, mémé is a common name used for grandma in the New England states where a large portion of the population is of French origin. This sentence uses the reflexive verb se souvenir (to remember). The sentence is in the imperfect tense, which is a past tense used to express “used to”. This lesson covers toujours, which means “always”.
Je me souviens très bien de Mémé. Elle me parlait toujours en français.
I remember grammy very well. She used to always speak to me in French.
In French, the word arrière (literally “back”) is added to grand-mère to mean great-grandmother. This sentence uses the verb savoir, which means to know something factual in nature.
Sais-tu le nom de ton arrière-grand-mère ?
Do you know your great-grandmother’s name?
Conclusion
Et voilà ! Now you know how to how to say grandmother in French! Now check out our lesson covering French family vocabulary (lesson includes 50+ beautifully created audio files).
