langue étrangère
\lɑ̃.ɡ‿e.tʁɑ̃.ʒɛʁ\
The verdict
“langue étrangère” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Langue qui n’est pas la langue maternelle d’une personne.
Corpus desk
Index FR-langue-etrangere · langue étrangère · French
langue étrangère · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 16 letters
- VOW-7 7 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "L" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | langue étrangère |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \lɑ̃.ɡ‿e.tʁɑ̃.ʒɛʁ\ |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « langue étrangère » en français
Rare enough to double-check
langue étrangère is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \lɑ̃.ɡ‿e.tʁɑ̃.ʒɛʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Langue qui n’est pas la langue maternelle d’une personne.".
Zero misspellings are on record for langue étrangère in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is langue étrangère, spelled L-A-N-G-U-E- -É-T-R-A-N-G-È-R-E.
Definition
- 1Langue qui n’est pas la langue maternelle d’une personne.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how langue étrangère appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
– Il faudrait d’abord que tu apprennes une langue étrangère ! dit Alexandre. – C’est pas sorcier ! – Non, mais c’est long !
On a beau parler couramment une langue étrangère, c’est vers sa langue maternelle qu’on tend à se tourner pour nommer fruits et légumes. Bien que je sache parfaitement comment s’appelle tel fruit ou tel légume en anglais ou en français, c’est le créole que j’emploie pour en parler.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.