Today we’ll look at the preposition malgré, which translates to both “despite” and “in spite of”. The pronuncition of is quite straightward: mahl-gray.
malgré
despite, in despite of
Word origin
The modern French word malgré is a composed of the adjective mal (bad, poorly) and gré (what you want, will). The word gré comes from grātus (pleasing, grateful) in Latin. A related expression, bon gré mal gré, means “whether you like it or not”.
Example sentences
For this first sentence, se marier (to get married) is a reflexive verb. This lesson explains reflexive verbs.
Le jeune couple s’est marié malgré l’opposition de leurs parents.
The young couple got married despite the opposition of their parents.
In this sentence, la mer can be used to refer to the sea (ocean) and the seashore. This lesson covers la mer. The word temps means both “weather” and “time” in French.
La famille est partie à la mer malgré le mauvais temps.
The family went to the seashore despite the bad weather.
For this last sentence, we translated quand même to “still”. This lesson covers the beautiful word neige (snow).
Malgré la neige, nous sommes quand même partis.
We still left despite the snow.
Conclusion
Et voilà ! You now know how to use the word malgré (despite) in French. Now check out our lesson covering cependant (however, yet, nonetheless).
