What? Google!? You may be scratching your head at this one. Google Français is a good online resource because it’s the same google that all the French people use!
You could use google to help proofread your sentences.
For example, if you type in an incorrect French statement such as, “J’ai mangé bien” into google, all the searches will come back saying “J’ai bien mangé“. Since French Google is used by Frenchies often, it has a nack to throw back grammtically correct French statements from the search! Now granted, if you performed the same operation with regular Google, you’ll also see similar results for this example. Time after time, I’ve found that the more complex the statements, the more you should use Google French.
Another time you may want to use Google.fr is when searching for french worded images. For example, searching soutien gorge in both Google and French Google images would produce the same amount of results, and very similar images. Yet, the French Google site offers related searches, such as: soutien gorge noir, sans soutien gorge, soutien gorge sport,… etc. When typing in French false cognates (words that are used in both French and English, but have different meanings) such as “chat“, the French site produces hundreds of cat images, while regular Google gives us computer screens and people talking. (Google gets it right when you use an article, but even then, the search isn’t as good as Google French).
My last reason for using Google France is simple. When you search a site such as MSN, Yahoo, or Youtube, you’ll receive the French sites, not the english counterparts.
So all in all, does regular google produce the same results as French Google? I would say yes, because they are both Google. But the French site offers your more chances to stumble upon websites written in French, or edit a few sentences for grammatically correct French.
To check out google.fr, click HERE.
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