Level B1 (Intermediate)
This lesson focuses on “malgré,” a crucial French preposition meaning “despite” or “in spite of.” Understanding “malgré” will help you express concession and contrast, adding depth to your French sentences.
Meaning
Pronunciation with IPA
Example sentences
Word origin
Meaning
“Malgré” is a French preposition that translates to “despite,” “in spite of,” or “notwithstanding” in English. It is always followed by a noun or a pronoun, never a verb or a clause. It introduces an idea that runs contrary to what might be expected, creating a sense of concession or opposition.
Pronunciation
Example sentences
For this first sentence, se marier (to get married) is a reflexive verb.
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. 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”.
Malgré la neige, nous sommes quand même partis.
We still left despite the snow.
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”.
Synonym
En dépit de is a synonym for malgré, though it’s slightly more formal and must always be followed by de + noun.
En dépit de la pluie, je suis sorti.
I went out in despite of the rain.
Related conjunctions
The following conjunctions are not synonyms for malgré. Yet, they all are associated with adding a contrasting idea to what had just been stated.
- Bien que (although, even though)
- Quoique: (although, even though)
- Cependant: (however, nevertheless)
- Néanmoins: (nevertheless, nonetheless)
- Pourtant: (yet, however, still)
- Toutefois: (however, yet)
References
