fyrebeest

[indigo notch]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

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[novel dawn]

what

les means those

so like

les Francais

and

a cote de

means next so

a cote de la France ?

[trim kernel]

they're talking about lès or lez

and the only time either gets used is in place names

[plain citrus]

@cyan oar Do you have an example?

[cyan oar]

ah i see

[novel dawn]

tf i lez

is *

[lavish warren]

lol

it's an old word that nowadays only appear in place names

Joué-lès-Tours

[brisk owl]

Ok so thats the difference?

[rustic prairie]

lez does not exist afaik lez is an existing but uncommon orthographic variant of the more common lès:
lès only appears in placenames and is not a word that is used in regular parlance

[brisk owl]

Hmm

[velvet nebula]

Lez does exist, that's mostly seen in Nord town names.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lès

[lavish warren]

between what?

in conclusion, don't ever use lès or lez, as they appear only in proper nouns

[brisk owl]

La question originale c'etait sur la différence entre lez et à coté de

[lethal swallow]

bah on te l'a dit, lez c'est vieilli et on le voit plus que dans les noms de lieux

en tout cas lès est beaucoup plus répandu