Learning to drive

Le panneau de limitation is the speed limit sign, and the near-twin an English reader is carrying is the wrong one. « Panel » and un panneau overlap on exactly one thing — a flat rectangle of material, the panel of a door, un panneau de bois — and then they part company for good. In French the word walked out to the roadside and stayed there: un panneau stop, un panneau de signalisation, le panneau d’affichage in a school corridor, un panneau publicitaire beside a motorway. In English it went indoors and into committee rooms: an instrument panel, a solar panel, a panel of experts. Worse, neither of the two words an English speaker reaches for instead will serve. Un signe is a gesture or a mark made on paper, and un signal is something given off — a light, a horn, a warning sound. The metal plate on the post is un panneau and nothing else, which is why vous n’avez pas vu le panneau is the sentence that ends a driving test.