There are multiple ways of saying “again” in French. Today, I would like to touch upon the difference between à nouveau and de nouveau.
Sometimes I post about the difference between certain words or phrases like this below :
From now on, I will call these “Word battles” to express how serious this topic is 🤼 😂
First of all, what is your answer to this question?
How do you say ‘again’ in French?
🗣️: Encore! I know that word! 😁
If this was you, you can keep using that word or learn something new with this post.
À nouveau vs de nouveau
I believe most of you already know the word nouveau, which means new.
Okay, but first let’s run Google Translate à nouveau and de nouveau:
"À nouveau" and "de nouveau" both translate to "again" in English.
Yes, they are the same, however, don’t you think there is a reason why for French use different prepositions? Let’s find out!
À nouveau:
Meaning: Implies doing something again in a new or different way.
Connotation: There's a nuance of change, modification, or improvement.
Example: If you repair something using a different method than before, you might say "réparer à nouveau".
Sentence: Il a dû refaire l'exercice à nouveau pour corriger ses erreurs. (He had to redo the exercise again to correct his mistakes, perhaps using a new approach.)
De nouveau:
Meaning: Implies doing something again in the same way as before.
Connotation: Repetition of the same action without any particular change or new method.
Example: If you repair something the same way as before, you would use "réparer de nouveau".
Sentence: Elle a lu le livre de nouveau parce qu'elle l'a beaucoup aimé. (She read the book again because she liked it a lot.)
In summary, "à nouveau" suggests a different or modified repetition, whereas "de nouveau" simply indicates the repetition of the same action. (from GPT 👾)
This morning I wrote a sentence in French, and I checked with a translator called DeepL. For the word ‘again’ in my sentence, it suggested both à nouveau and de nouveau. At first, I blindly used à nouveau because it was showing as the top suggestion. However, after I searched the difference between these two, it was more precise to use de nouveau in the context of my sentence. I hope you learnt something new too, and happy learning!