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French word of the Day: Mytho

The Local France
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French word of the Day: Mytho
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond"

Do you know someone with a penchant for tall stories? You might need this word.

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Why do I need to know mytho?

It's a nice casual word to have in your vocabulary and it's also the name of a rather good French comedy series.

What does it mean?

It means liar, but in the sense of a compulsive liar or someone who just never stops telling tall stories. 

It's short for mythomane - mythomaniac - but is more commonly used in its shortened form.

So if your friend is boasting that they got all their French paperwork sorted in under a fortnight, you could call them out with T'es une mytho! - You're a liar!

Or to describe someone Il est avocat, donc naturellement c'est une mytho - He's a lawyer, so naturally he's a liar.

Or like this Twitter user who seems not to be a fan of French president Emmanuel Macron, describing him as 'the biggest liar in the world'.

 

What else?

The more formal word for a liar is un menteur and the verb to lie is mentir, while the word for lies is les mensonges.

And on a slightly different note, if you're looking for a good French TV series, the comedy series Mytho is now on Netflix. It tells the story of under-pressure suburban wife and mother Elvira who tells one massive lie and then gets caught in an increasingly desperate web of deceit.

 

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