Q 01/05

Members of the Académie française, which has policed French since Cardinal Richelieu's day, carry what nickname?

A) The Guardians

B) The Sages

C) The Immortals

D) The Elders

Answer · why

C) The Immortals

The Immortals, les immortels, take the name from the Académie's motto À l'immortalité, and each of the forty holds a numbered seat for life, wearing t...

Q 02/05

A French speaker saying quatre-vingts for 80 is literally saying what, a relic of an older counting system?

A) Four twenties

B) Eight tens

C) Two forties

D) Ten eights

Answer · why

A) Four twenties

Four twenties is the literal reading, a trace of a vigesimal, base-20, system: 70 is soixante-dix, 'sixty-ten', and 99 comes out as quatre-vingt-dix-n...

Q 03/05

In which country do some French speakers say huitante for 80, where France says quatre-vingts?

A) Belgium

B) Switzerland

C) Luxembourg

D) Senegal

Answer · why

B) Switzerland

Switzerland is split on the matter: Geneva, Neuchâtel and Jura keep quatre-vingts, while Vaud, Valais and Fribourg count huitante, and the whole Frenc...

Q 04/05

The distress call mayday, adopted for aircraft in the 1920s, is generally traced to the French for what?

A) Come quickly

B) We are sinking

C) Have mercy

D) Help me

Answer · why

D) Help me

Help me is m'aider, short for venez m'aider; by the usual account Croydon radio officer Frederick Mockford picked it because so much of his traffic fl...

Q 05/05

The circumflex on words such as hôpital, forêt and île marks the loss of which letter from older French?

A) T

B) S

C) L

D) N

Answer · why

B) S

S is the vanished letter: the circumflex marks a lost sound, so tête was once teste and château was chastel, while the English cousins hospital, fores...