Quelqu'un m'a dit
by Carla Bruni
How to study this song
The card for “Quelqu'un m'a dit” is built from 51 study entries at B1-: 22 French words, 4 adjectives and 25 verb forms. Begin with vies, chose and instant: get those and most of the lines stop being guesswork. This one leans on its verbs: 25 distinct forms against 4 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. At this level part of the list will already be familiar; the rest is what closes the gap.
The words of this song, in several languages
Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.
Vocabulary
| FR | EN | ES | IT | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| vies | lives | vidas | vite | vidas | levens | Leben |
Adjectives
| FR | EN | ES | IT | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| grand | big, great | grande | grande | grande | groot | groß, großartig |
This card holds 3 more adjectives. You meet them when you play the song.
Verb forms
| FR | EN | ES | IT | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dit | says | dice | dice | diz | zegt | sagt |
What this song teaches you
Level · B1-
- Vocabulary words
- 22
- Adjectives
- 4
- Word combos
- 6
- Expressions
- 10
- Verb forms
- 25
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
«Quelqu’un m’a dit» is the title track and opening song of Carla Bruni’s first album, which reached French shops at the end of 2002 and the rest of Europe in 2003. Until then Bruni was known almost entirely as one of the leading fashion models of the 1990s, and the record came as a genuine surprise: a quiet, almost home-made set of acoustic guitar and close-miked voice, produced with Louis Bertignac, the former guitarist of the French rock band Téléphone. Nothing about it sounded like a celebrity project. It sounded like somebody playing songs in a small room late in the evening, which is roughly how it was made.
The song is a short meditation in two moods. The verses are resigned and a little bitter: they reflect on how quickly a life goes by, how time wears people down, and how fate seems to promise a great deal while handing over very little. Then the chorus turns on a single piece of hearsay. An unnamed person has passed on a rumour that a former lover still has feelings for the singer, and she cannot decide whether to believe it. The whole song hangs on that doubt. She does not know who said it, she barely remembers when, and the more she turns the message over, the less certain she becomes that it was ever said at all.
What makes it so useful for a learner is how plain the language is. There are no rare words and no elaborate images; the drama comes from grammar. The rumour is reported in the imperfect tense, which is how French passes on something another person claimed, and the recurring question is built with the conditional and an inverted subject — the polite, slightly literary way French asks whether something could possibly be true. Almost every line can be read aloud by a beginner, and yet the emotional weight sits in exactly those small grammatical choices.
The lyric of the title track is credited to Bruni together with the film director Leos Carax, while the music is hers alone.
Did you know?
Bruni did not start as a singer. Her first published songwriting was for Julien Clerc, whose 2000 album «Si j’étais elle» carries mostly her lyrics; the success of that collaboration is what pushed her to record songs of her own.