Today we’ll have a look at a feminine noun which many students struggle to pronounce correctly: guerre, meaning “war”. Towards the bottom of the post we’ll contrast guerre with gare (train station) to see the difference in pronunciation.
guerre
war
Guerre meaning and translation – war in French
Word origin
Guerre (war) in modern French comes from from Early Medieval Latin werra, which in turn came from from Frankish werru. Hence, the English word “war”.
Example sentences
For this first example sentence, été is the past participle of the verb être (to be). World War II in French is la Seconde Guerre mondiale (the second World War).
Mon grand-pere a été un soldat pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale.
My grandfather was a soldier in World War II.
Il y a eu beaucoup de guerres entre la France et l’Angleterre.
There have been a lot war between France and England.
For this sentence, faire la guerre à means “to wage war on/against” in the figurative sense.
Le gouvernement fait la guerre aux pollueurs.
The government is waging war against polluters.
For this final example sentence, we’ve included the feminine noun gare, which means train station and sounds very similar to guerre (war).
Où est la gare, s’il vous plaît ?
Where is the train station, please?
Related lessons
References
