Today’s lesson covers hein, an extremely simply yet commonly used interjection. Hein can mean “eh?!”, “huh?” or “what?” to express a lack of understanding. The other usage is for demanding confirmaiton: “Isn’t it?”, “isn’t he/she?”, “right?” or “yeah?”. Hein comes from hem (ah, oh, eh) in Latin.
Pronunciation 1: hein? [ˈɛ̃] (what?)
Pronunciation 2: hein (demanding confirmaiton)
Hein – French interjection
Example sentences
This first sentence uses capter, which is a slang synonym for comprendre (to understand). The negation ne…rien mean nothing or anything.
Hein, qu’est-ce que t’as dit? Je n’ai rien capté!
Huh? What did you say? I didn’t understand a thing!
This sentence uses the commonly used impersonal expression il faut, which has many translations including “you need to”.
Attention, hein ! Il faut bien réfléchir avant de répondre.
Watch out, eh! You need to think before answering.
For this sentence “Pourquoi tu ne l’invites pas” (why don’t you invite her?) omits est-ce que (is/are/do/does for yes-no questions). This is common in spoken French. The l’ (shortening of la) is a direct object pronoun meaning “her”.
Elle est belle, hein ? Pourquoi tu ne l’invites pas au resto ?
She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Why don’t you invite her out to eat?
More interjections
- Euh – uh, um, er
- Bah ouais! – Yeah!
- Attention ! – Watch out!
- Coucou! – Hi there!
- Oh là là – Oh, wow, yikes!
- Zut – Shoot, Darn!
- Bof – Meh, nah
- Tant Pis – Too bad, oh well
References
Word of the Day archive | Lessons by David Issokson
