Learn French: Le chef vient de me faire une confidence.

Le chef vient de me faire une confidence.

The boss just told me a secret.

Breakdown of Le chef vient de me faire une confidence.

the boss / the manager

venir

to come

Questions & Answers about Le chef vient de me faire une confidence.

Why does the sentence use vient de instead of a normal past tense like a fait?

The phrase venir de followed by an infinitive is called the passé récent (recent past). It is the standard way to express that someone 'just' did something. So vient de me faire translates exactly to 'just told me'.

Why is the pronoun me placed before faire rather than before the conjugated verb vient?

When a sentence has a conjugated verb followed by an infinitive, object pronouns usually go immediately before the infinitive they belong to. The action being done to 'me' is the telling (faire), so me must go right before faire.

Why does the French sentence use faire instead of dire for telling a secret?

French uses the set expression faire une confidence to mean 'to confide in someone' or 'to tell a secret'. You cannot use dire in this specific phrase.

Does confidence here mean the same thing as the English word confidence?

It is a partial false friend! While it relates to trust, une confidence specifically means a secret or a piece of private information that is shared. If you want to talk about self-confidence, you would use la confiance en soi.