Colours and qualities in French

These are the adjectives of the first week, plus a few small words that keep turning up beside them. One of those, même, does three jobs English gives to three unrelated words. Before a noun with an article it is « same »: la même chose, the same thing. Hooked onto a pronoun it makes the emphatic « self »: moi-mêmeis myselfeux-mêmesis themselves And standing alone in front of a phrase it means « even »: même lui est venu, even he came, and même pas is not even. The thread is identity — the same thing, the very person, and the case you would not have expected to belong. Position tells you which one is meant, and nothing else does.