The French Expression VoilÃÂ

The French Expression Voil Pronunciation: [vwa la] Register: normal Even though voil is just one word, it has so many possible meanings- most of which require multiple words in the English equivalents- that weve decided to treat it as an expression. The first thing to know about voil is that its spelled voil. Please note that the grave accent on the a is obligatory. (See common misspellings at the end of this article.) Secondly, voil, which is a contraction of vois l (literally, see there), has varied uses and meanings, which are hard to define precisely, so weve provided numerous examples to help make the distinctions clear. Here, There Voil can be a presentative which introduces a visible noun or group of nouns and can mean any of the following: here is, here are, there is, there are. Technically, voil only refers to things that are farther away (there is/are), while voici is used for close things (here is/are), but in reality voil tends to be used for all of the above, except when a distinction between two objects is required.   Ã‚  Voil la voiture que je veux acheter.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Here / There is the car I want to buy.   Ã‚  Me voil !   Ã‚  Ã‚  Here I am!   Ã‚  Le voil !   Ã‚  Ã‚  Here it / he is! There it / he is!   Ã‚  Voici mon livre et voil le tien.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Heres my book and theres yours. This, That When followed by an interrogative adverb or indefinite relative pronoun, voil means this/that is:   Ã‚  Voil oà ¹ il habite maintenant.   Ã‚  Ã‚  This is where he lives now.   Ã‚  Voil pourquoi je suis parti.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Thats why I left / That is the reason (why) I left.   Ã‚  Voil ce que nous devons faire.   Ã‚  Ã‚  This is what we have to do.   Ã‚  Voil ce quils mont dit.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Thats what they told me. Filler Voil is commonly used as a sort of summing up expression at the end of a statement. This is usually just a filler and doesnt have a simple English equivalent. In some cases, you could say you know, OK, or there you have it, but in general we just leave it out of the English translation.   Ã‚  Nous avons dà ©cidà © dacheter une nouvelle voiture et de donner lancienne notre fils, voil.   Ã‚  Ã‚  We decided to buy a new car and give the old one to our son.   Ã‚  On va commencer avec ma prà ©sentation, suivie dune visite du jardin et puis le dà ©jeuner, voil.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Were going to start with my presentation, followed by a visit to the garden and then lunch. How Long Voil can be an informal replacement for depuis or il y a when talking about how long something has been going on or how long ago something happened.   Ã‚  Voil 20 minutes que je suis ici.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ive been here for 20 minutes.   Ã‚  Nous avons mangà © voil trois heures.   Ã‚  Ã‚  We ate three hours ago. That's Right Voil can be used to agree with what someone just said, along the lines of thats right or thats it exactly. (Synonym: en effet)   Ã‚  - Alors, si jai bien compris, vous voulez acheter sept cartes postales mais seulement quatre timbres.   Ã‚  Ã‚  - Voil.   Ã‚  - So if Ive understood correctly, you want to buy seven postcards but only four stamps.   Ã‚  Ã‚  - Thats right. Now You've Done It Et voil is commonly used, especially when talking to children, after youve warned them about something and they do it anyway, causing the very problem you tried to prevent. Not quite as mocking as I told you so, but along those lines: I warned you, you should have listened, etc.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Non, arrà ªte, cest trop lourd pour toi, tu vas le faire tomber... et voil.   Ã‚  Ã‚  No, stop, thats too heavy for you, youre going to drop it... and you did / I warned you. Spelling Notes Voil is sometimes used in English, and for this reason, its often written voila. This is acceptable in English, which tends to lose accents on words borrowed from other languages, but its not acceptable in French. There are several other common misspellings: Voil has the wrong accent. The only letter that ever has an acute accent in French is e, as in à ©tà © (summer).Viola is a word, though not a French one: a viola is a musical instrument slightly larger than a violin; the French translation is alto.Vwala is an Anglicized spelling of voil.Walla? Not even close. Please, use voil.