Learning French: This little word for work is actually an acronym

Have you heard French friends or neighbours talk about ‘taf’ and wondered what it meant? Perhaps from the context you inferred it meant ‘stuff to do’; you would be right. It is an acronym for ‘travail à faire’, or ‘work to do’.

This is a slang expression mostly used by the younger generation who might refer to their ambitions for a well-paid job by saying: Je cherche un taf bien payé. Or, if they need to apologise for not being available, they might say: Désolé, je ne peux pas venir, j’ai du taf. 

When listening to French, there is no difference between à faire (to do, to make) and affaire, which means business. 

Note that the French word affaire is another one of those false friends and is not all like our English use of ‘an affair’. 

If you ever hear someone described as un homme d’affaires, this does not mean that the chap in question has a lot of extra-marital relationships: he is simply a businessman.

Read more: Curiosities of the French language: The jolly month of mai

Linguistic link

If you think about it, there is a delicious linguistic link here between affaire/business and à faire/busy-ness, things to do. 

No doubt you will have come across the expression ce n’est pas de ton affaire, meaning that it is none of your business. 

However, there is another way to use this word, and that is when a subject is your area of expertise, or completely your ‘thing’. Le marketing, c’est son affaire would mean that marketing truly is his field of expertise. 

Finally, you will hear affaire in the sense of une bonne affaire (a good deal or bargain). For example, to say ‘I found these trainers for €10, what a bargain!’ is simply, ‘J’ai trouvé ces baskets à €10: quelle affaire!’