#25 - Matin & Matinée, Jour & Journée, Soir & Soirée

Matin or matinée, jour or journée, soir or soirée?  The first pair mean "morning," the second pair, "day," and the third pair, "evening."  So why do the French have two words for each of these things?


The answer is actually pretty simple: matinée, journée, and soirée all emphasize a duration of time. 

A good example is the phrase "J'ai passé toute la matinée/journée/soirée à faire..." ("I spent all morning/day/evening doing...).  The emphasis is on the length of time you spent doing something, so la matinée refers to the whole morning, la journée is the whole day, and la soirée is the entire evening.

For almost anything else, you would use matin, jour, or soir.

• Qu'est-ce que vous faites ce soir ?  ("What are you doing this evening?")
• Vous avez combien de jours de vacances ?  ("How many days of vacation do you have?")
• D'habitude, je pars au boulot à 8h du matin.  ("I usually go to work at 8 o'clock in the morning.")
• Ce jour-là, j'étais content. ("That day, I was happy.")

This is reflected in the fact that when you greet someone, you use "Bonjour!" or "Bonsoir!" but when you say goodbye, you wish someone a "Bonne journée!" ("Have a good (rest of the) day!") or a "Bonne soirée!"  ("Have a good (rest of the) evening!").

There are a few other definitions attached to these words.  For instance, soirée can also refer to a party: an "evening party," naturally.  In English "soirée" refers exclusively to really fancy parties, like Irma Prunesquallor's, but in French it can really mean any evening party.  The difference is pretty clear when you do a Google image search for soirée.

French Google mostly shows you pics like this:

English Google comes up with a few pics like that as well, but there are just as many images like this:

 

Oui, oui mes amis, pour les anglophones, les soirées sont vraiment classes...parce que le français, c'est classe !  ;-)

Overall, French soirées seem to have a preponderance of disco balls while English soirées are lit by chandeliers.  :-P

Perhaps less funny, but also interesting is how the term matinée has been adopted into English solely for the purpose of referring to cinema and theater shows...and not even necessarily in the morning!  In fact, the Merriam-Webster definition of "matinée" is:

• "a play, movie, etc., that is performed or shown in the afternoon."  

In English, "matinée" actually refers to a reduced-price showing or performance that happens before a certain hour--usually before 3, 4, or 5pm, depending on the theater/cinema.