toujours (French) – Structured Vocabulary Support
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‘toujours’ is one of the first French words a learner meets. It means ‘always’, and most people never look inside it. Historically it grew from the words now written ‘tous’ (‘all’) and ‘jours’ (‘days’) - an idea like ‘all days’. In modern French, ‘toujours’ works as one complete adverb, with that old idea folded inside it.
By about 1100, Old French already had the joined form ‘tuzjurz’, ‘without cease’, historically formed from the plural of ‘tout’ and ‘jour’ - it turns up in the Chanson de Roland. The two halves trace back to Latin ‘totus’ (‘whole, all’) and ‘diurnum’ (‘a day’). Less well known is the word it replaced: Old French had ‘sempre’ (from Latin ‘semper’) for ‘always’, but its meaning slid toward ‘straight away’; TLFi records that sense as late as 1466, after which it dropped out of standard French. Spanish and Italian kept the older word - ‘siempre’, ‘sempre’ - while French came to use ‘toujours’, historically the ‘all days’ formation, as its standard word for ‘always’.
• The etymology comic: seven illustrated black-and-white stage panels, one idea each, with short captions written for a secondary-age reader - from the two Latin words, through the Old French compound, to the modern spelling and the English and cross-language cousins.
• The word-history breakdown: Latin to modern, with a date at each stage the record allows.
• The English-links page: the everyday English words that share the ‘day’ root - ‘journey’, ‘journal’, ‘adjourn’, ‘sojourn’, ‘diurnal’ - and ‘total’, from the ‘all’ root.
• The sources page: the dictionaries the history is built from (TLFi, Etymonline, and the cross-language references).
• A short how-to-use guide for the adult.
The PDF prints two ways. Print the large cards single-sided, laminate them and clip them onto a binder ring, and you have a deck a child can hold, turn over and lay out in order - the panels are numbered so a loose deck goes back together. Or print the single reference sheet at the end, which holds the whole word on one page for the pencil case or the middle of a lesson - no laminating needed. You assemble the deck yourself; there is no ready-made deck. You will need a printer, plus a laminator and a ring for the deck.
For personal use in home education and tutoring only.
Designed first for one dyslexic secondary learner, but it suits a wider range: anyone who likes knowing where words come from; French GCSE students (Key Stages 3 and 4) who want the vocabulary to stick; home-educated learners; children working with a specialist tutor, including those with dyslexia or a weak working memory; parents brushing up their own French alongside a child; and adults returning to the language from school.
It isn’t built for a complete beginner who hasn’t met ‘toujours’ yet, or for a very early reader. It assumes the learner can already read the word aloud and wants to understand it, not decode it for the first time.
Vocabulary that arrives as a flat list - ‘toujours = always’ - tends to slide straight back out again. A learner who can see that ‘toujours’ is ‘all days’, and that its ‘jour’ is the same ‘jour’ inside ‘journey’ and ‘journal’, has something to hold on to. The history isn’t there to be memorised; it’s there to give the word a shape the learner recognises when it turns up again.
‘toujours’ doesn’t only mean ‘always’. French also uses it in expressions meaning ‘anyway’ or ‘in any case’ - ‘dis toujours’, ‘go on, tell me anyway’ - and in ‘cause toujours!’ it means something close to ‘talk all you like’ - I’m not listening. (Recorded in the TLFi.)
The Wordhord (free): English word cards for the roots inside ‘toujours’ - ‘journey’ and ‘journal’ (the ‘day’ root) and ‘total’ (the ‘all’ root). Built alongside this resource.
The Compendium: the article on why word origins help with modern languages, which sets out why a resource like this is built the way it is.
Originally created to support my dyslexic son’s learning once the school day had ended.
Available now as a PDF download.
‘toujours’ is one of the first French words a learner meets. It means ‘always’, and most people never look inside it. Historically it grew from the words now written ‘tous’ (‘all’) and ‘jours’ (‘days’) - an idea like ‘all days’. In modern French, ‘toujours’ works as one complete adverb, with that old idea folded inside it.
By about 1100, Old French already had the joined form ‘tuzjurz’, ‘without cease’, historically formed from the plural of ‘tout’ and ‘jour’ - it turns up in the Chanson de Roland. The two halves trace back to Latin ‘totus’ (‘whole, all’) and ‘diurnum’ (‘a day’). Less well known is the word it replaced: Old French had ‘sempre’ (from Latin ‘semper’) for ‘always’, but its meaning slid toward ‘straight away’; TLFi records that sense as late as 1466, after which it dropped out of standard French. Spanish and Italian kept the older word - ‘siempre’, ‘sempre’ - while French came to use ‘toujours’, historically the ‘all days’ formation, as its standard word for ‘always’.
• The etymology comic: seven illustrated black-and-white stage panels, one idea each, with short captions written for a secondary-age reader - from the two Latin words, through the Old French compound, to the modern spelling and the English and cross-language cousins.
• The word-history breakdown: Latin to modern, with a date at each stage the record allows.
• The English-links page: the everyday English words that share the ‘day’ root - ‘journey’, ‘journal’, ‘adjourn’, ‘sojourn’, ‘diurnal’ - and ‘total’, from the ‘all’ root.
• The sources page: the dictionaries the history is built from (TLFi, Etymonline, and the cross-language references).
• A short how-to-use guide for the adult.
The PDF prints two ways. Print the large cards single-sided, laminate them and clip them onto a binder ring, and you have a deck a child can hold, turn over and lay out in order - the panels are numbered so a loose deck goes back together. Or print the single reference sheet at the end, which holds the whole word on one page for the pencil case or the middle of a lesson - no laminating needed. You assemble the deck yourself; there is no ready-made deck. You will need a printer, plus a laminator and a ring for the deck.
For personal use in home education and tutoring only.
Designed first for one dyslexic secondary learner, but it suits a wider range: anyone who likes knowing where words come from; French GCSE students (Key Stages 3 and 4) who want the vocabulary to stick; home-educated learners; children working with a specialist tutor, including those with dyslexia or a weak working memory; parents brushing up their own French alongside a child; and adults returning to the language from school.
It isn’t built for a complete beginner who hasn’t met ‘toujours’ yet, or for a very early reader. It assumes the learner can already read the word aloud and wants to understand it, not decode it for the first time.
Vocabulary that arrives as a flat list - ‘toujours = always’ - tends to slide straight back out again. A learner who can see that ‘toujours’ is ‘all days’, and that its ‘jour’ is the same ‘jour’ inside ‘journey’ and ‘journal’, has something to hold on to. The history isn’t there to be memorised; it’s there to give the word a shape the learner recognises when it turns up again.
‘toujours’ doesn’t only mean ‘always’. French also uses it in expressions meaning ‘anyway’ or ‘in any case’ - ‘dis toujours’, ‘go on, tell me anyway’ - and in ‘cause toujours!’ it means something close to ‘talk all you like’ - I’m not listening. (Recorded in the TLFi.)
The Wordhord (free): English word cards for the roots inside ‘toujours’ - ‘journey’ and ‘journal’ (the ‘day’ root) and ‘total’ (the ‘all’ root). Built alongside this resource.
The Compendium: the article on why word origins help with modern languages, which sets out why a resource like this is built the way it is.
Originally created to support my dyslexic son’s learning once the school day had ended.
Available now as a PDF download.
