communiquer

Communiquer covers both the everyday sense of talking and exchanging information with someone (communiquer avec ses collègues) and the more formal sense of officially announcing or releasing information (le gouvernement a communiqué de nouvelles mesures). It's a cornerstone verb for anyone discussing relationships, media, or business in French.

• Nous devons mieux communiquer entre nous. — We need to communicate better with each other.
• L'entreprise a communiqué ses résultats trimestriels. — The company released its quarterly results.
• Elle communique facilement avec les enfants. — She communicates easily with children.

Communiquer avec quelqu'un needs the preposition avec for "to communicate with someone" — learners sometimes drop it, saying *communiquer quelqu'un, which is wrong outside the specific sense of communicating information TO someone (communiquer une information à quelqu'un).

• quote "On ne peut pas ne pas communiquer" — Verified: the first of psychologist Paul Watzlawick's five axioms of human communication (Palo Alto School) — "one cannot not communicate," since even silence sends a message. Widely cited in French communication theory and media studies.