Learning French comes with the joy of spotting familiar words—until a false cognate trips you up. Words that look the same in English and French can have very different meanings, leading to awkward or ...

Standup comedian Jacques Silvère Bah, known as Le Magnific, played with French and African words and accents at a humor festival in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in February. Arlette Bashizi for The New York ...