Today we’ll focus on the adverb heureusement, which means fortunately and luckily. The reason this word made it onto our list is that several students expressed having difficulties with the pronunciation. Heureusement j’apprends le français! (Fortunately, I’m learning French!).
heureusement
fortunately
Heureusement
Word origin and pronunciation
The French adverb heureusement (fortunately) is comprised of heureuse, the feminine form of the adjective heureux (happy), with the commonly used French adverb suffix -ment (-ly in English). Heureux (happy) comes from the Latin word augŭrĭum (divination, prediction).
For the pronunciation of heureusement, this video breaks the word down into four distinct syllables: [heu-reu-se-ment] or [øʀøzmɑ̃]. The final -ent is pronounced as a nasal -en sound with the -t being silent.
Example sentences
For this first example sentence, when français (French) appears in the context of the langauge name, it must be preceded by the definite article le (the).
Heureusement j’ai appris le français avant mon voyage en France !
Fortunately, I learned French before my trip to France.
When preceded by the prefix mal (bad/badly), malheureusement means unfortunately or sadly. Je n’ai pas pu is the passé composé (a commonly used French past tense) of the verb pouvoir (can, to be able) and translates to “couldn’t” or “wasn’t able”.
Malheureusement j’ai oublié mes clés et je n’ai pas pu ouvrir la porte.
Unfortunately, I forgot my keys and wasn’t able to open the door.
We cannot end this lesson without having a very quick look at the adjective heureux (m)/heureuse (f) (happy).
Marc est un garçon heureux. Sylvie est une fille heureuse.
Marc is a happy boy. Sylvie is a happy girl.
Related lessons
References
