Touche french3/28/2023 Ça m’a touché – ‘That had an emotional impact on me’ or 'It really moved me'.Īnother common figurative use of the verb toucher occurs when one talks about receiving or winning a certain amount of money.įor example, just as one might ‘hit the jackpot’ in English, they would similarly touche le jackpot in French.Īnd someone who ‘gets a bonus’ for a certain achievement would touche une prime:Īprès avoir vendu sa vingtième, Jacques a touché une grosse prime – ‘After selling his 20th car, Jacques got a big bonus.’ Votre discours nous a beaucoup touchés – ‘Your speech really moved us.’ J’ai été vraiment touché par sa générosité – ‘I was really touched by his/her generosity.’ It does, however, have some figurative meanings besides the obvious physical one that you should be aware of.įor instance, one can use touché to say that something has affected them emotionally, or moved them, similar to the use of ‘touched’ in English, as in : In everyday French conversation, it’s unlikely that you’ll hear touché used in this way, unless you’re actually fencing. In fencing as in arguing, it signals that one’s adversary has scored a point. This use of the word has its roots in the sport of fencing, and signaled that one of the competitors had been struck, or ‘touched’, by the other (much of fencing’s vocabulary comes from French – ‘en garde’ or ‘riposte’, for example). In an argument in English, touché is often used to recognize that the other person has made a good, clever or funny point that cannot be refuted or has no comeback. Touché is the past participle of the word toucher, which means ‘to touch’ as a verb and refers to one of the five senses when used as a noun.īut English speakers use it to acknowledge a particularly effective counter-argument or comeback in a battle of repartee or “banter”, as some would say. So you know that this word means very different things in English and French.
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