Question 1

Wait, doesn't intimité mean 'intimacy'? Why does it translate to 'privacy' here?

Accepted Answer

Intimité is a bit of a false friend. While it can mean 'intimacy', it is also the standard French word for 'privacy' (referring to personal space or private life). French doesn't have a direct equivalent to the English word 'privacy', so you will usually see intimité or vie privée used instead.

Question 2

Why do we say veut de l'intimité instead of veut l'intimité?

Accepted Answer

Here, privacy is an uncountable concept, so we need a partitive article (which translates roughly to 'some'). Because intimité starts with a vowel, we use de l'. If you used l'intimité, it would sound like she wants the general concept of all privacy, rather than just 'some' privacy for herself.

Question 3

What if the celebrity is a man? Would it be le star and chez lui?

Accepted Answer

No, the noun star is always feminine in French (une star), regardless of the person's actual gender. Because the grammar must agree with the noun, you would still say la star and use the feminine pronoun elle in chez elle to refer back to the word star, even if you are talking about a male actor.

Question 4

Why do we use chez elle instead of à sa maison for 'at her home'?

Accepted Answer

In French, the preposition chez combined with a stress pronoun (like elle, lui, moi) is the most natural way to say 'at someone's home' or 'at someone's place'. While à sa maison is grammatically understandable, it sounds very clunky and unnatural to a native speaker.

La star veut de l'intimité chez elle.

Breakdown of La star veut de l'intimité chez elle.

Questions & Answers about La star veut de l'intimité chez elle.

Learn La star veut de l'intimité chez elle and more in French