city (ville , cité)

[Mnemosyne]

Quand est-ce qu'on utilise le mot "ville," et quand est-ce qu'on utilise "cité"?

Merci.

Mnemosyne

Moderator note: two threads on this subject have been merged.

 

[L'irlandais]

Hello there,
ville can mean town or city, cité has for my money become almost synomous with housing estates/(housing project: US) = cité (quartier d'immeubles)

Cette discussion sur Français Seulement donne plus de details.

 

[Nonoxp]

I think you can find more info here : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cite#Aujourd.27hui

Cité = Old cities (generally part of today's cities, placed in the center)
Ville = Today's cities

*A negative (but actual) meaning for Cité is "suburb", like you can see in the suburbs riot we had recently

 

[vanagreg]

You would use "ville" when you talk about the town from a general point of view.

J'habite en ville.
La ville de Paris est candidate.
Dans quelle ville habitez-vous?

"Cité" is more specific. Nowadays it tends to describe a neighbourhood (especially in the suburbs).

 

[Mnemosyne]

Ah, ok. Alors, "Cité de la Musique" à Paris, ça équivaut un peu à "Music Neighborhood"?

 

[L'irlandais]

Well it would mean in the vicinity of the music, and not Music Quarter as we intended.
In any case you don't need to translate it as the "Cité de la Musique" à Paris is known to one and all by it's French name.

 

[gpuri]

Bonjour,

I would like to know the difference between cité and ville? I think both mean "city" but is there a difference in their usage?

e.g. I live in the city: j'habite dans la ville ou j'habite dans la cité ?

merci.

 

[Uncle Bob]

I may be wrong but I think "cité" is only used to speak historically of a (cathedral) town. Nowadays "cité" is used to speak of a collection of tower blocks in the poorest suburbs of a town.

 

[gpuri]

merci beaucoup

 

[Ali Smith]

Cité in the sense of ‘city’ is never used in modern French. Ville is always used to mean ‘city’ or ‘town’. It’s ironic that the original sense of cité was indeed ‘city’.

 

[Locape]

You can still use it with specific expressions, like la cité phocéenne (= Marseille), la cité des papes (Avignon), la cité des ducs (Dijon in Burgundy ou Nantes in Brittany), la Cité corsaire (Saint-Malo), la cité de Carcassonne.
Or to mean the old town (the historic downtown).

cité :
6. Partie la plus ancienne de la ville et où se trouve l’église cathédrale ou principale.

• Le 13 décembre 1838, par une soirée pluvieuse et froide, un homme d’une taille athlétique, vêtu d’une mauvaise blouse, traversa le pont au Change et s’enfonça dans la Cité, dédale de rues obscures, étroites, tortueuses, qui s’étend depuis le Palais de Justice jusqu’à Notre-Dame. — (Eugène Sue, Les Mystères de Paris, §.1, 1842-1843)

cité (Wiktionnaire)