Describing life at school in French

• The present tense is used to talk about things that happen regularly and is useful for describing the school day.

• Reflexive verbs describe an action that you do to yourself and are useful for describing daily routine and the school day.

• Reflexive pronouns are used with reflexive verbs.

• This guide contains a video as well as reading and listening practice.

Watch the video of Detchen describing her daily routine.

Useful verbs to use when talking about daily routine include:

Useful verbs to use when talking about life at school include:

Useful nouns to use when talking about daily routine and life at school include:

Useful phrases to use when talking about travelling to and from school include:

In French, the present tense is used to talk about things that happen regularly or are happening now. For example:

Je mange - I eat/I am eating

The present tense can also be used with time adverbs to refer to something that is happening in the future. For example:

Demain je joue au foot avec mes amis. - Tomorrow I am playing football with my friends.

Les examens commencent la semaine prochaine. - The exams start next week.

French has both regular and irregular verbs. Regular verbs follow a set pattern while irregular verbs do not.

There are many more regular verbs than irregular verbs, but many of the irregular verbs are used often.

The three groups of regular verbs are named after their endings. They are known as er verbs, ir verbs and re verbs. For example:

arriver - to arrive

réussir - to succeed

entendre - to hear

How to conjugate regular verbs

French verbs have different endings depending on who is doing the action. To form the present tense of regular verbs, take the ending off the infinitive and add the necessary endings for each person.

Have a look at the Regular verbs in the present tense guide to find out more about conjugating verbs in French.

Reflexive verbs describe an action that you do to yourself or something that reflects back to yourself. They have to include a reflexive pronoun, which changes depending on who is doing the action.

Reflexive infinitives in French are easy to spot as they are preceded by the reflexive pronoun se, or s’ if the next letter is a vowel or silent h.

For example:

Demander means ‘to ask’, while the reflexive verb se demander means ‘to ask oneself’ or ‘to wonder’.

Have a look at the conjugation of the reflexive verb se lever (to get up) with the reflexive pronouns for the I, you (singular) and he/she/it forms in the singular only:

For example:

Je me lève à sept heures. – I get up at 7 o’clock.

Reflexive verbs are often used for daily routine activities.

For example, se doucher (to shower oneself/have a shower) and se coucher (to go to bed) are reflexive verbs.

Tu te couches tard ? – Do you go to bed late?

Have a look through the slideshow to see how frequently reflexive verbs can be used to describe daily routine.

Before a reflexive verb that starts with a vowel or a silent h the reflexive pronoun changes. For example:

me becomes m'

te becomes t’

se becomes s’.

The infinitive se becomes s’.

Have a look at how the reflexive pronoun changes in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd person singular with the verb s'amuser (to enjoy oneself):

For example:

Elle s’habille très vite. - She gets dressed very quickly.

Test your knowledge of reflexive verbs in French with this mini quiz.

Press the purple START button when you are ready to start the activity.

Find out more about using reflexive verbs in the Reflexive verbs in French guide.

A French school has updated its details on their website. Read through the text from the website and answer the questions.

Bienvenue sur notre site web. Ici, vous trouverez de l’information utile sur notre établissement. Nous avons 950 étudiants, avec 50 professeurs et neuf personnes qui font l’administration.

Notre collège a 42 salles de classe qui ont été récemment modernisées. En plus, l’année dernière nous avons construit un grand gymnase. On a quatre excellentes salles d’informatique dont toutes les classes profitent.

Les cours commencent à 8h30. Il y en a sept par jour et ils durent 50 minutes. La plupart de nos étudiants viennent au collège à pied, mais certains prennent l’autobus. À 10h35, il y a une récré de quinze minutes et à 12h30, c’est la pause-déjeuner qui dure quarante-cinq minutes. Les cours se terminent à seize heures. Après les cours, nos étudiants participent à un grand nombre de clubs culturels et sportifs. Il n’y a pas de cours le mercredi après-midi ni le samedi matin.

Tous nos étudiants font un minimum de quarante-cinq minutes de devoirs chaque soir. La discipline est stricte et le comportement de nos étudiants est excellent.

Hélène Benoit, principale du collège.

Useful phrases to describe life at school school include:

Useful phrases to describe the school day include:

Useful vocabulary to describe school uniform include:

Useful phrases to describe school clubs include:

All Foundation Tier vocabulary listed in this guide can be found on the vocabulary sheet below.

Many of the most common, high frequency verbs are irregular in the present tense including:

• avoir - to have
• être - to be
• aller - to go
• faire - to do / to make
• venir - to come
• écrire - to write
• connaître - to know / to be familiar with
• rire - to laugh

Find out more about using irregular verbs in the Irregular verbs in the present tense in French guide.

Listen to the podcast extracts in which a student is discussing her school life and answer the questions.

Press or click on the purple START button when you are ready to begin the activity.

Click or tap on the image below for a list of useful vocabulary to use when talking about school and daily routine.

Useful Higher Tier verbs include:

Useful Higher Tier nouns include:

Useful Higher Tier phrase:

All vocabulary listed in this guide can be found on the vocabulary sheet below.

Click or tap on the image below for a list of useful vocabulary to use when describing life at school and daily routine.

Now you have revised the important vocabulary and key grammar points for life at school why not have a look at the Describing the local area guide?