essay about myself in french with english translation

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How to Describe Yourself in French

Last Updated: September 9, 2022 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Language Academia . Language Academia is a private, online language school founded by Kordilia Foxstone. Kordilia and her team specialize in teaching foreign languages and accent reduction. Language Academia offers courses in several languages, including English, Spanish, and Mandarin. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 441,648 times.

Describing yourself is an important skill personally and professionally. You may wish to meet or date someone, get to know a friend better, or present yourself in a professional context. The rules for describing yourself in French are similar to how you would do it in English, but there are a few distinctions to be aware of. Using these guidelines you will have a basic structure that you can expand on to provide a more personalized description of yourself.

Describing your Personality

• The French word for first name is “prenom” (prey–nom). You could say “Mon prénom est...” (mon prey-nom ey) which means “my first name is...”
• The French word for surname is “nom de famille” (nohm dhe fah-mee). In a professional or commercial transaction if someone asks for your "nom" be sure to provide your last name rather than your first.

• Consult a dictionary to find pronunciations of specific numbers.
• You can also describe your age group more generally using the phrase “je suis” (zhe swee) followed by an adjective. “Jeune” (zhuhn) means young. “Vieux” (vee-euh) indicates an elderly man, while “vieille” (vee-ay) indicates an elderly woman. “Je suis jeune” means “I am young.”

• You can also say “my hair is...” followed by a color. The phrase for this is “Mes cheveux sont...” (meh chuh-vuh son). Consult a dictionary for the appropriate color.
• The same construction works to describe your eye color. You would say “Mes yeux sont ...” (mehz-yuh son) which means "my eyes are..." Note that in this case you pronounce the s at the end of “mes” because the next word begins with a vowel.

• “Fort” (for) means strong, while “faible” (febl) means weak.
• “Petit” (petee) for men or “petite” (peteet) for women means small or short.
• “Grand” (grahn) for men or “grande” (grahnd) for women means large or tall.

• Content (cohn-tahn) means happy, while triste (treest) means sad. You would say "je suis triste" to convey "I am sad."
• Fatigué (fah-tee-gay) means tired. You would say “je suis fatigué” to convey "I am tired."

Describing Your Activities

• Male occupations that end with “eur” (euhr) often change to “euse” (euhz) for women. For example, a massage therapist would be either a masseur or a masseuse.
• Male occupations that end in “ier” (ee-ay) often add an extra e to become ière (ee-ehr) for women. A farmer would be either a fermier or a fermière.
• Male occupations that end in a consonant may add an extra e to become feminine. For example, a male student is an “étudiant” (ay-tood-eeon) while a female student is an "étudiante" (ay-tood-eeont). Note that the final consonant is pronounced only in the female form.
• Many occupations have only one form, regardless of gender, such as "professeur" which means teacher.

• “I like” is “j’aime” (zhehm). "I love" is “j’adore” (zha-dor). “J’aime lire” (zhehm leer) means “I like to read.”
• The words “ne” and “pas” on either side of the verb negate the phrase, indicating dislike. "I do not like" is “je n’aime pas” (zhe nem pah). “Je n’aime pas chanter” (zhe nem pas chan-tay) means “I do not like to sing.”

• Mon (mohn) or ma (mah) are used as possessives, when you wish to indicate that you like something that belongs to you. Mes (meh) indicates a possessive plural. [5] X Research source
• Mon is used when the noun is masculine, indicated in the dictionary by the letter m. “J’aime mon chat” means "I like my cat." Note that it does not matter if you are male, it matters that cat (chat) is a masculine noun.
• Ma is used when the noun is feminine, indicated in the dictionary by the letter f. “J’aime ma tante” means "I like my aunt." Again, it matters that aunt is a feminine noun, not that you are a man or a woman.
• Mes indicates a possessive plural noun, such as “my aunts” or “my cats.” You would say “j’aime mes tantes” or “j’aime mes chats.” [6] X Research source

• If this is too challenging it may be easier to use the above recommendations for sharing hobbies, simply saying “I like sports” or “j’aime les sports.”
• This construction also works to describe personality traits. For example gentil/gentille (zhantee/zhanteel) means nice. You would say “je suis gentil” if you are a man or "je suis gentille" for a woman.

Printable Phrase Guides

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• ↑ https://omniglot.com/language/phrases/french.php
• ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zjx947h/articles/z7ftwty
• ↑ https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/frenchcopy/chapter/2-4-the-verb-etre/
• ↑ http://www.languageguide.org/french/grammar/gender/
• ↑ http://www.thefrenchexperiment.com/learn-french/possessive-adjectives.php
• ↑ https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/possessive-adjectives/
• ↑ http://www.languageguide.org/french/grammar/adjectives/

About This Article

To describe yourself in French, start by learning some of the basic French phrases for introducing yourself, like “Je m’appelle” and “Je suis” to tell people your name and something about yourself. For example, “Je suis blonde” tells people that you’re a blonde, while “Je suis fatigué” means “I’m tired!” To talk about your interests, use the word “J’aime” to say that you love or like something! Scroll down to learn how to use the appropriate adjectives for your gender! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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LinguaJunkie.com

A very cranky language blogger dishing out brutal language tips.

How to Introduce Yourself in French in 10+ Lines + Audio

Want to speak French? Yes? Good – keep reading.

This is for those that truly want to learn the language. Here’s how you introduce yourself in French in 10 easy lines… and this might take you 2 to 3 minutes or less. You can also listen to audio by pressing the play button.

There’s also a PDF for these phrases at the end!

But if you’re JUST looking for the ONE French phrase, it’s this:

• My name is ______.
• Je m’appelle ______.

1) Bonjour, enchanté(e) de faire votre connaissance.

“Hello” and “Nice to meet you” are must-know phrases. Any introduction will probably will start with these words.

• Hello, it’s nice to meet you.
• Bonjour, enchanté(e) de faire votre connaissance.

You should also listen and hear real French – Press play below. Try this Free Lesson from FrenchPod101.com (click here to visit) for the complete explanation about introducing yourself!

Press play to listen below.

Now, let’s say someone asks for your name in French.

They would say….

2) Comment t’appelles-tu?

• What’s your name?
• Comment t’appelles-tu?

3) Je m’appelle ______.

This is simple. To say “my name is” in French, you just need the phrase “Je m’appelle.” Then say your name. For example, if the name is Linguajunkie, it would be like this…

• Je m’appelle Linguajunkie.

Here’s another example:

• Je m’appelle Robert. Comment t’appelles tu ?
• My name is Robert. What’s your name?

4) Je viens de ____.

So, where are you from? America? Europe? Africa? Asia? Just stick the name of your country inside this phrase. We’ll use France as an example.

• Je viens de France .
• I’m from France .

5) J’habite à ______.

What about now – where do you live? Just fill in the blank with the country or city (if famous) into this phrase. I’ll use Paris as an example.

• J’habite à Paris .
• I live in Paris .

6) J’apprends le français depuis _____.

How long have you been learning French for? A month? A year?

• J’apprends le français depuis un an .
• I’ve been learning French for a year .

7) J’apprends le français sur _____.

Where are you learning French? At school? At home? This would be a great line to know and use when you’re introducing yourself. Here’s my example:

• J’apprends le français sur FrenchPod101.com .
• I’m learning French at FrenchPod101.com .

8) J’ai  ___  ans.

Here’s how to say how old you are in French. Just add the number in. You will want to know French numbers from 1 to 100 , so click the link to review and find out how to say your age in French.

• J’ai      ans.
• J’ai 27 ans.
• I’m 27 years old .

9) Je suis ______.

What about your position? Are you a student? Yoga teacher? Lawyer for the potato industry? Potato salesman? Super important question that people like to ask (and judge you about – Hey, I’m just a blogger! ). Just use “ani” meaning “I” and add your position.

• Je suis enseignant (e).
• I’m a teacher .

Here are some examples of other jobs:

• ingénieur – engineer
• programmeur – programmar
• infirmière – nurse
• professeur – professor
• employé de bureau – office worker/clerk
• ouvrier de société – company worker
• gérant – manager
• secrétaire – secretary
• docteur – doctor
• agent comptable – accountant
• officier de police – police officer
• pompier – firefighter
• avocat – lawyer
• cuisinier – cook

10) Un de mes passe-temps est la lecture. _____.

Now, let’s move onto personal interests – hobbies! My hobbies are languages, linguajunkieing and such. How about you? You’ll definitely need this line when introducing yourself in French.

Here’s an example to use:

• Un de mes passe-temps est la lecture.
• One of my hobbies is reading.

11) J’aime écouter de la musique.

Now, this is just another example line about your hobbies . You can use something else where.

• J’aime écouter de la musique.
• I enjoy listening to music.

So now you know how to introduce yourself in French.

Remember, if there’s only ONE phrase you’ll remember me, Lingajunkie, let it be:

If you want a French PDF lesson for this Introductions lesson, check out the link below. You can download it for free.

Let’s recap the French phrases for self-introduction:

I’m sure there’s a ton more you can say – but this is an easy, simple start that any beginner can put to use. It’s all about starting easy. Here are the French lines for your self-introduction.

See if you can introduce yourself below. Leave me a comment.

I read all comments!

Hope you enjoyed this!

– The Main Junkie

P.S. I highly recommend this for French learners. If you REALLY want to learn French with effective lessons by real teachers – Sign up for free at FrenchPod101 (click here) and start learning!

Merci,this helps alot

Wow I love this it help a lot

Merci beaucoup

merci becoup

I found this very useful as I prepare myself for the oral test thanx for this

how to say daddy in french

THANKS FOR THIS!!

merci madam

how do you say ” I am taking 6 classes this semester” ?

merci bonjour je m’appelle Malveer J’habite a mosh

um…could you write an introduction for students?????

[…] learn bonus lines for introducing yourself in French in part […]

Bonjour , enchante de faire votre connaissance. je m’appelle Gloria Ewoigbe . Je viens de Nigeria. J’ai 17 ans. J’habite ‘a England . J’apprends Francais depuis trois mois. j’apprends Francais ‘a mon Ecole, ma maison et sur French pod 101 .com un de mes passe -temps est la lecture. J’aime ecouter la Chritienne musique . J’aime Paris repas il est de’licious. Je suis une etudiante . Aussi J’aime Dieu. Et Toi? qui es -tu?

[…] This next section of French phrases contains basics you’d need for conversations. Like, how to say “yes,” “thank you,” “how are you,” or even introduce yourself in French. […]

whats up yo

Thank you for helping

It was not easy and unable to understand for a 7 class child

Very nice! I love it! It helped me a lot!!

Wow I can’t read?

agréable de vous rencontrer copains

Mille merci

Merci, C’est tres simple et utile 😉

Introduce Yourself In French In 7 Best Ways

• , April 10, 2023

Are you wondering what the best way to introduce yourself in French is? Introducing yourself to others can be complicated because a proper introduction should include your name, where you live, your job, how old you are, and often even your hobbies. And if this is your first time speaking French, you will have to take note of certain words and phrases.

In general, it is not part of French etiquette to start with an introduction without greeting the other person. After the initial greetings, you are asked basic information about yourself, and you should know the very basic phrases and words to answer appropriately. Here is a complete guide to introducing yourself in French. Keep reading!

Simple French Greetings

In French culture, you always greet other people when meeting them. Here are standard French greetings:

• Bonjour – Hello (or good morning)
• Salut – Hello (informal context, similar to “hi”)
• Bonsoir – Good evening
• Bonne nuit – Good night (typically used when leaving)
• C’est un plaisir de vous rencontrer – It’s a pleasure to meet you (formal version)
• Enchanté de faire votre connaissance – Delighted to make your acquaintance
• C’est un plaisir de faire votre connaissance – it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance

When you complete the conversation and are about to leave, you can say:

• Au revoir – Goodbye
• À bientôt – See you later

À bientôt is an informal option used only when you know a French person, or you can use the formal version au revoir, with strangers.

Remember that in French, in informal situations, you can use the word “ Tu .” However, if you are meeting others in formal situations, you should use “ Vous .” Learn more about the French basic greetings as you study along with Ling.

Best Ways To Introduce Yourself In French

In introducing yourself in French, you have to use a few words to say who you are. Typically, the first thing that others want to know is your name.

During a French introduction, you can say your name in different ways. Here are the most common:

• Je m’appelle… – I am … ( literally translates in “I am calling myself…)
• Je suis… – I am…
• Mon nom est… – My name is…
• Moi c’est… – I am… (used when the other person’s name is said first)
• Mon prénom est… – My first name is…
• Je m’appelle (name), mais je me fais appeler (name) – My name is (name), but I prefer to be called (name)
• Je me présente – I’d like to introduce myself

Note : Sometimes, you are the one who will say your name first saying your name, but there may also be times wherein you will suddenly be asked about your name and where you live and work. For example, your French friends can ask you:

• Comment vous appelez vous? – What is your name? (formal way used with strangers)
• Comment t’appelles tu? – What’s your name? (informal version)
• Quel est ton travail? – What is your job? (informal version)
• D’où venez vous? – Where are you from? (formal)
• Qu’est-ce que tu aimes faire? – What do you like to do? (used with a french friend)
• Qu’est-ce que vous aimez faire? – What do you like to do (used when you just met someone)

You could also be asked où habitez-vous? (Where do you live). This is used with a new french friend or people you don’t know. The informal version is où habites-tu?

Answering Questions During The Introductions

Learning French introductions includes answering common questions when you are asked. Typically, other people want to know basic information to relate with you and have something to talk about.

Where Do You Live – Où Habites-Tu (Vous)?

• J’habite à Paris – I live in Paris
• Je viens de Paris – I come from Paris
• Je viens de France – I come from France

What Is Your Job – Quel Est Votre (Ton) Travail?

• Je suis… – I am… (tell your profession)

You should just say your profession after Je suis without any other word. For example:

• Je suis enseignant – I am a teacher
• Je suis un pilote – I am a pilot
• Je travaille comme (or je suis) réceptionniste – I work as a receptionist

What You Like To Do – Qu’est-ce Que Vous (Tu) Aimez Faire?

• J’aime… – I like …
• Je m’intéresse à… – I am interested in…

For example, you can say:

• J’aime voyager – I like to travel
• J’aime étudier les langues étrangères – I like to study foreign languages

What Languages Do You Speak? – Quelle Langue Parles-tu (Vous)?

When you are making French friends, they may also be curious about your abilities to learn new languages and how many languages you know. So it can be part of the introduction.

• Je parle French et (other languages) – I speak French and …
• J’étudie…  – I am studying…
• J’apprends le Français depuis… – I learn French since…

How Old Are You (Quel Âge As-tu?)

It is perfectly fine to answer the following:

• J’ai (numbers of years) ans – I am (number of years)

Examples Of Introduction In French

Here are some French phrases of how you put together all the above information with a conversation partner.

• Introduce yourself in French when speaking first:
• Bonjour (or salut)! Je m’appelle (name). Comment vous appelez-vous? – Hello! My name is (name). What’s your name?
• Introduce yourself in French when you are asked your name:
• Bonjour je m’appelle (name). Et toi? – Hello! My name is Renée. And you?

You can respond:

• Bonjour! Moi c’est (name). Enchanté(e). – Hello! I’m (name). Nice to meet you.
• Introducing yourself in French in formal contexts
• Pardonnez-moi. Je me présente, (name). Enchanté(e). – Excuse me. My name is (name). I’m pleased to meet you.

Do you want to master the French language? Then, you can continue your progress by reading 50 French Adjectives and 10 Basic French Pronouns .

Learn French With Ling App

Speaking of basics, there are many French words that you will learn as you develop your skills in reading, writing, listening, or speaking. But, don’t exclude yourself from exploring Arabic, Spanish, or Japanese too. Do you want to learn more languages? Or simply know more about French? Then, you can use Ling App . It is a learning app that can help you improve your French and offers the possibility of learning 60+ languages from a mobile device or desktop.

What are you waiting for? Download Ling from App Store and Play Store for free!

6 Responses

Merci buocoup

Salute Madame

Merci beaucoup

This all makes french language more interesting actually. After going through this reading.

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How to Talk About Yourself in French

Learning how to properly talk about yourself in another language is key to making the best first impression possible when meeting new people. There are a variety of ways to introduce yourself and your personality in each culture, with its particular customs and formulations.

Introducing yourself in French

These are some of the first things you will learn in any French language class, they are key phrases to learn to use when introducing yourself.

Your name, age, and nationality may be some of the first things someone asks of you if you are meeting them for the first time, and knowing these phrases will allow you to make a good first impression.

“ Bonjour, je m’appelle __.” - “Hello, my name is ____.” This is the same formulation regardless of the gender of the speaker. Of course, you can also switch up the salutation itself to better fit the context, such as using “Salut” for a casual one, or “Bonsoir” if it is the evening.

“ Je m’appelle ____, et je viens des Etats-Unis.” - “My name is ___, and I come from the United States.” Of course, you would replace ‘Etats-Unis’ with any place you are coming from, such as ‘Bresil’ for Brazil, ‘Le Royaume-Unis’ for the United Kingdom, and so forth.

“ Je m’appelle ___, j’ai vingt-quatre ans et je viens du Royaume-Unis.” - “My name is ___, I am twenty-four and I come from the United Kingdom.” This phrase, when substituted with the correct name, age, and nationality which applies to you, covers all the basic information needed when meeting someone for the first time.

“ J’ai vingt-neuf ans, et je vais bientôt avoir trente ans.” - “I will soon be thirty.” In French, when saying how old you are, you use the verb “avoir” (to have), meaning it literally translates to “I have twenty-nine years.” If you are close to twenty, thirty, or forty years old, it may be more natural to say you are nearing that decade.

“ Je suis Américaine, mais je vis au Canada.” - “I am American, but I live in Canada.” If you have been living in another country than your natal one for a long time, you may feel that it is a significant part of your identity. By telling someone where you live in addition to where you are from, they may get a better sense of who you are and where you are coming from.

Talking About Your Profession and Studies in French

Work and studies are an important part of most people’s lives. Knowing how to describe where you work or study, and what in what field, can give a person important insight into who you are and what you do in life.

Below, we will show you some basic examples of how to introduce your profession or field of study in French.

“ Je suis étudiante en médecine dans une université Américaine.” - “I am a medical student in an American university.” If you want to say what year of study you are in, you can add “Je suis en troisième année” (I am in third year), “Je suis en masters” (I am doing my masters), and so forth.

“ J’ai fini mes études pour devenir vétérinaire, et pour le moment je fais un stage en Californie.” - “I finished my degree to become a veterinarian, and at the moment I am doing an internship in California.” As with the others, you can always replace ‘ vétérinaire’ with other professions such as ‘banquier’ (banker), ‘ambassadeur’ (ambassador), ‘danseuse’ (dancer), and so forth.

“ Je suis institutrice dans une école primaire.” - “I am a teacher in a primary school.” In French, “école primaire” refers to school from ages six to around ten. Kindergarten is “la maternelle,” middle school is “le college, ” and highschool is “le lycée.”

“ Je vais commencer des études en business à l'automne." - “I will begin business studies in the Fall.” You would use this phrase if you are a soon-to-be university student. In French, the word “business” is borrowed from English, but pronounced with a French accent. You may not be understood if you use an American or British accent when pronouncing the word.

“ Je viens de finir mes études, et je vais commencer un stage à New York.” - “I have just finished my studies, and I am going to start an internship in New York.” In France, internships are often required for students and are much more common than in North America. Students will sometimes do two or three internships over the course of their degree and may have the choice to go abroad for them.

“ Je travaille dans le secteur de la culture.” - “I work in the cultural sector.” In French, it is common to refer to the field you work in by its sector, especially if the profession you are doing covers a wide variety of tasks. It also puts emphasis on the environment and subject of your profession rather than on your job itself.

Talking About Your Interests in French

Interests are an important part of anyone’s personality, and knowing how to describe your interests, passions, and hobbies, is crucial when learning a new language. Knowing these basic formulations will help you deepen conversations in French. They will also be useful when making French friends .

“ Je suis passionné par le sport.” - “I am passionate about sports.” This is the basic French formulation to say you are passionate about something, and you can always swap out “le sport” for something such as “les voitures” (cars), “l’histoire” (history), “les langues” (languages), for example.

“ Ma passion dans la vie est le voyage.” - “My passion in life is travel.” Unlike the previous phrase, this French phrase is used to express the ultimate passion you may have in life. By using this phrase, you are communicating that above all else, this is the thing which gives you life. As with the last phrase, you can switch “le voyage” to any passion you may have.

“ J’adore apprendre de nouvelles langues.” - “I love to learn new languages.” For a less intense version, you can also say “J’aime…” instead of “J’adore,” which translates to “I like.” However, “J’adore” is less intense than the English “I love,” meaning that you can use “J’adore” without sounding extreme.

“ Je suis une fan des documentaires sur la nature.” - “I am a fan of documentaries on nature.” This is the feminine version of the phrase, and in the masculine form, you would use “un fan.” This phrase is more casual, and would refer to a general interest or hobby of yours rather than something you are very passionate about. You would also use this in casual, rather than formal, settings.

“ La politique ne m'intéresse pas, je préfère la littérature." - “Politics do not interest me, I prefer literature.” Although we generally speak more about our positive interests, it is good to know how to talk about what you do not like. In this case, by talking about the lack of interest in politics, even more emphasis is placed on literature.

“ J’aime la cuisine, les livres, et les randonnées." - “I like cooking, books, and hiking.” This is a simple and effective way to cover some of your most important interests. After learning more French vocabulary, you will be able to easily substitute any of these terms to fit your personality and the context you are in.

Talking About Your Personality in French

As much as interests, work, and studies are key features of a person, certain personality traits are fundamental to each person, and make us unique as individuals. Knowing phrases on how to talk about certain parts of your personality can help deepen another person’s understanding of who you truly are.

“ Je suis une personne plutôt timide.” - “I am a rather shy person.” No matter the gender of the speaker, when you use the French noun « une personne » to refer to yourself, it is always feminine. (see this article for more on determining the gender of French nouns ). If you are a shy person, letting the person that you are speaking with know can help them understand how you are around people better.

“ Je suis une personne très extravertie.” - “I am a very extroverted person.” If you are traveling alone in a French-speaking country, for example, and tell someone you have just met that you are extraverted, they may be more inclined to have you meet their friends.

“ Je me considère ouvert d’esprit.” - “I consider myself to be open-minded.” Using the phrasing “Je me considère” may be a more humble and appropriate way to say you are open-minded, otherwise it can sound a bit assertive. “Je me considère” is a very eloquent French phrase to know in general when you are describing yourself.

“ On me dit souvent que je suis une personne drôle." - “I am often told that I am a funny person.” Be careful not to switch up the wording by saying “une drôle de personne,” which would translate closely to “a weird person.” Although used less commonly, this phrasing can be used to switch up from the usual “Je suis…” formulation.

“ Je n’ai pas beaucoup de confiance en moi.” - “I do not have much confidence in myself.” A lot of people struggle with insecurity and lack of confidence, and confiding it in someone can help make the relationship stronger. We all have more or less positive personality traits, and knowing how to communicate them all is a good skill to have.

“ Je suis très sensible et j’aime beaucoup aider les autres.” - “I am very sensitive and like to help others.” The French word « sensible » is used more regularly than its English equivalent « sensitive » is used in English, and has less negative connotations. By saying you are sensitive in French, you are saying that you are sympathetic and probably feel a lot of emotions.

“ J’ai tendance à être attiré par les gens calmes.” - “I have a tendency to be attracted to calm people.” The kind of person are attracted to, whether romantic or otherwise, can say a lot about the kind person you are. If you are more on the eccentric side of the spectrum, you may find yourself closer to people who are calm, to create a balance.

Talking About Your Physical Features in French

Physical features are also an important part of what makes individuals unique. Although they may not be as important to what makes up a person, there will always exist situations in which you will need to know how to describe your most basic features. These phrases will help you learn to talk about your physical features in French.

“ Je suis grand, mince, et j’ai les yeux bruns.” - “I am tall, skinny, and have brown eyes.” You could also say “marron, ” which also means brown. That said, while the word “marron” can be used to describe eye color, it is not used in French to describe hair color.

“ J’ai les cheveux courts et noirs.” - “I have short and black hair.” Of course, you can swap this with whatever color or length your hair may be: “bruns” (brown), “chatains” (light-brown), “blonds” (blond), “roux” (dark red) for the color, or “longs” (long), or “mi-longs” (mid-length).

“ J’ai une longue barbe avec la tête rasée." - “I have a long beard and a shaved head.” This style is growing in popularity, so knowing how to say this can help not only to describe yourself, but also help you achieve this specific look if you are looking to change up your style.

“ Je suis petite avec les cheveux frisés." - “I am short with curly hair.” In French, the word “petite” (“small”) refers specifically to height, while in English it tends to be used when referring to someone short and skinny. In French, a “petite” person does not necessarily mean they have a small waist.

“ J’ai une carrure athlétique avec des tatouages sur mes bras.” - “I have an athletic build with tattoos on my arms.” As with the English term “build,” the French word “carrure” refers to someone’s overall body type. It is used more often to refer to an athletic build than anything else.

These phrases are only a starting point into your journey to learn how to talk about yourself in French. But as you acquire more extensive and complex vocabulary, you will be able to better formulate these phrases according to your personal features, whether they are physical, mental, or in terms of lifestyle.

Simple-French

Simple French Lessons Online and Other Things Too

Lesson 4: Talk about Yourself

Learn how to briefly  talk about yourself in French. Learn how say what your name and age are, where you live (city and country), what you do for a living , what you like doing , where you work and what languages you speak . Audio text with interactive exercises to improve your learning.

Read the text below and listen to the audio for pronunciation. Next, do the reading comprehension exercise and answer the questions at the end. For any problems with comprehension, take a look into the Notes section.

1. Text: Talk About Yourself in French

[wp-svg-icons icon=”volume-medium” wrap=”i”]

Bonjour. Je m’appelle  Marie. J ’ ai 27 ans et j ’ habite à  Nantes, en France. J ’ ai toujours vécu dans cette ville. Je suis professeur de français et je  travaille à l’Université. J’ aime apprendre les langues étrangères . Je parle anglais et espagnol. J’aime également  sortir avec des amis et voyager. Je suis déjà allée* en Allemagne, en Pologne, en Espagne,  en Angleterre et en Irlande. Et toi, quels pays as -tu visités ?

[su_spoiler title=”Vocabulary”]

habiter à Nantes / à Paris / à Rome travailler à l ‘hôpital / à la radio / au centre commercial J ‘ ai vécu : I have lived / I lived … aimer apprendre / manger / voyager / rencontrer

[/su_spoiler]

[su_spoiler title=”Grammar”]

Le présent et le passé (Le passé composé )

A. simple present tense:.

 – Le présent : current actions and situations, habits, general truths

• Je m’appelle Marie.
• J’habite à Nantes.
• Je parle espagnol.
• Je suis professeur.

Conjugation example:

The most common French verb group is the the “-er” group, that all the verb that end on “er”. Examples: parler, habiter, aimer, s’appeler.

All of them conjugate the same way, by adding the appropriate suffixes to the stem (its base)  of the verb.  -e, -es,-e, -ons, -ez, -ent

B. Past Tense

 –  le passé composé : completed actions in the past..

être / avoir + verb (past participle).

Whether you need to use être or avoir depends on the verb.

Eg. avoir + vivre

• Je vis à Nantes. I live in Nantes .
• J’ ai vécu à Nantes. I lived / have lived in Nantes .

Eg. être + aller

• Je vais à Berlin. I go to Berlin.
• Je suis allé à Berlin. I have been to Berlin.
• Je vais à l’école. I go to school.
• Je suis allé à l’école. I went to school / I have been to school.

! I have been to Spain = Je suis allé en Espagne = J’ai visité Espagne. 

! Je suis allé e  = you add the “e” at the end of the “allé” when you “Je” refers to a girl. It exists and is visible only in writing.

Le passé composé conjugation

The “s” in this sentence should appear if “Vous” refers to more than one person. If it is “vous” as in the polite and formal way of addressing someone, the “s” is dropped.  

[su_spoiler title=”Phonetics”]

3. Exercises

Reading Comprehension: 

[su_spoiler title=”Explanation of the exercise”]

[content id=”439″]

[xyz-ihs snippet=”talk-about-yourself-3-with-check”]

4. Homework

• what your name is and how old you are
• where you live (city, country)
• what kind of work you do and where you work
• what you like doing
• what foreign languages you speak
• what countries you have visited
• Quel est ton prénom ?
• Quel âge as-tu ?
• Que fais-tu dans la vie ? (Où travailles-tu ?)
• Qu’est-ce que tu aimes faire ?
• Quelles langues étrangères parles-tu ?
• Quels pays étrangers as-tu visités ?
• Learn by heart the answers you have created.

One Reply to “Lesson 4: Talk about Yourself”

1. Je m’appelle Juan. 2. J’ai 23 ans. 3. Je suis étudiant. 4. J’aime voyager aussi. 5. Je peux parler espagnol, italien, anglais et français. 6. J’ai visité 3 pays étrangers: France, Italie, Grande Bretagne.

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How To Introduce Yourself In French [Essential Phrases]

• Read time 11 mins

Salut ! Bonjour ! Comment vas-tu ?

Are you looking for ways to introduce yourself in French?

Knowing how to introduce yourself in French is a necessary skill; it can help us to make lasting friendships, get off on the right foot with new people, or meet a potential soulmate.

So if you’ve been wondering how to introduce yourself in French, take a look at this guide to learn ways to make a good first impression (and gain a few grammatical hints along the way).

How to introduce yourself in French the formal way: Step one, stating your name

To introduce yourself in French formally, that’s to people you don’t know, or in a work environment, simply say:

Bonjour je m’appelle [your name].

Now, je m’appelle literally translates to English as “I call myself”.

This is similar to the Spanish introductory phrase me llamo . But it is the standard way to tell someone your name and is used to say “my name is”.

You can then follow this up with the following sentence:

Je suis enchanté de vous rencontrer.

Note that the word enchanté here is the masculine single version of this adjective, whereas the word enchantée is the feminine single version of the adjective.

This means that if you’re a male introducing yourself to colleagues, you would use the adjective enchanté , and if you’re a female introducing yourself to colleagues, you would use the adjective enchantée .

What you should also note is that the formal version of making French introductions uses the pronoun vous .

This differs from the informal French introduction, as you will see in the following section.

One quick fact: enchanté or enchantée as an adjective means “delighted” or “pleased”.

How to introduce yourself in French the informal way

So now, let’s look at how to introduce yourself in French informally, which means to friends of friends, or family members related to your spouse who you’re meeting for the first time.

This requires a different register, but it’s less complex than the informal way to introduce yourself in French.

To do it, simply say:

Salut, je m’appelle [your name].

In this instance, did you notice that the introductory greeting word bonjour has been replaced with salut ?

This is because salut is normally used when greeting friends and family.

Quick tip: salut sort of means “hi” in English.

You can continue by saying the following:

Enchanté de te rencontrer.

Now, in this sentence, note that you don’t use the vous pronoun.

This has been replaced with the pronoun te , which must be used if you’re speaking with friends of friends or new family members that you might be meeting for the first time.

If you use vous , your introduction will sound a bit off… as though you’re being prim and proper with close friends.

That’s okay, but you’ll probably want to stick with te if you’re speaking with friends of friends.

What if you’re not sure if the situation is formal or informal?

It’s not always clear whether the situation is formal or informal.

For this reason, it’s always good to have a backup.

Instead of je suis enchanté de vous rencontrer or enchanté de te rencontrer , is just the word enchanté (if your male), or enchantée if you’re female.

What are reflexive pronouns and how to use them when introducing yourself in French?

You might have noticed, when reading this article on how to introduce yourself in French, that in the sentence je m’appelle , there is a strange m followed by an apostrophe.

This m’ is a reflexive pronoun and means that the verb appelle is reflexive.

Reflexive verbs are used when introducing yourself in French or asking someone their name in French.

In many situations, they are the equivalent of using the word myself or yourself in the introductory sentence.

So, let’s go ahead and take a look at the many different reflexive pronouns in the French language:

Reflexive verbs can alter the meaning of a sentence since they make the object of the sentence different.

So in one context, you might use the reflexive s’appeler verb to say “call myself” or you might use it to say “call one another”.

How to introduce yourself in French: Step two, asking someone’s name

As well as knowing how to introduce yourself in French, you’re going to need to know how to ask someone their name in French too.

The way to ask someone their name in French in a formal situation is to ask the interrogative:

Comment vous appelez-vous ?

This would literally translate to the English language as “what do you call yourself?”.

Also take note that the verb appeler must be conjugated with the verb form related to the person you are addressing, so in the following section, we’ve covered how to conjugate the verb appeler . Stick with us to find out!

Asking someone their name with the verb appeler

So, why and how do we need to conjugate the verb appeler to ask someone their name? Well, in one situation you might be asking just one person who you already know because they’re a friend of a friend.

In this case, you’d conjugate the verb appeler in the second person informal form: appelles _and use the reflexive pronoun _se .

In another situation, you might be asking someone to tell you what their friend’s name is.

In this case, you’d conjugate the verb appeler in the third person informal form: appelle .

Comment il s’appelle ?

You might want to ask for the names of several people in French, which will require the vous form of the verb appeler and the reflexive pronoun vous :

Or in the off chance that you’re forming a new band, you might want to ask your bandmates “what are our names?” which will require the nous form of the verb appeler and the reflexive pronoun nous :

Comment nous appelons-nous ?

Let’s look at the conjugation table below to confirm all of the conjugations of appeler , so you know how to ask anyone for their name.

How to ask someone their name in French informally

As mentioned above, there is a different register and word choice required for informal situations.

Here’s how to ask someone their name in French in informal situations:

Comment t’appelles-tu ?

So, here, we have a different sentence structure which uses the pronoun tu instead of the pronoun vous .

How to introduce yourself in French: Step three, talking about where you’re from

When introducing yourself in French, as the dialogue or chat starts to flow, someone might ask you where you’re from.

They might say:

D’où venez-vous ?

Or they might say:

D’où viens-tu ?

As you might have noticed, each of these mean the same thing.

It’s just the register that’s different here.

The first interrogative is the formal vous form, and the second interrogative is the informal tu form; the first interrogative is used in formal situations and the second is used in informal ones.

Part of knowing how to introduce yourself in French is knowing how to respond to this question, so here’s how to do it:

Je viens de [name of country]

Someone who wants to get to know you might also then ask you where you live, which in French would be:

Où habitez-vous ?

Or if they’re a friend of a friend, they will use the informal:

Où habites-tu ?

In response, just use the sentence j’habite à [name of city] .

Introducing yourself in French: Step four, stating your age, hobbies and occupation

Now you’re hitting it off with a person, they might ask you how old you are, what your hobbies are and what your occupation is.

Let’s take a look at each of these in turn.

Talking about how old you are when introducing yourself in French

So, if someone wants to know how old you are, in French they might use the interrogative sentence:

Quel âge as-tu ?

Note that the French interrogative uses the verb avoir , meaning “to have” in English. This means the sentence would literally translate to English as “what age do you have?”

You can respond to this question by saying:

J’ai [number of years] ans

Talking about hobbies when introducing yourself in French

Say you’re preparing for a blind date with a French native speaker. One of the things you’ll want to be able to mention when you introduce yourself in French are your hobbies. They might ask you:

Que fais-tu pendant ton temps libre ?

And if you’re wondering how to introduce yourself in French and make the best impression with your special someone asks you a question like this, here’s how you might respond:

J’aime [state hobby or interest]

For instance, if you like to listen to music, you might say:

J’aime écouter de la musique.

Note that the sentence structure “I like to” in French normally features the verb aimer with a second verb in its infinitive form.

In our example above, the second verb is écouter meaning “to listen”.

Talking about your occupation when introducing yourself in French

One final, but critical thing that might come up when introducing yourself in French is your occupation; someone might ask you:

Quel est ton travail ?

Or, in formal contexts, they’ll ask:

Quel est votre travail ?

Both of these translate to English as “what is your job/occupation?”

If you’re asked about your occupation when introducing yourself in French, here’s the best way to answer.

Just as with the Spanish language, we don’t use the article a when describing our professions in French.

So whereas in English we would say “I am a teacher”, here’s the French equivalent:

Je suis médicin.

It works for any profession, just substitute the profession with your own.

General tips for getting better at self-introductions in French

As it’s sometimes challenging enough to introduce yourself without the grammatical rules here are six crucial tips to help you:

• Listen to introductory conversations in audios, podcasts or French films . Get a feel for the way French native speakers introduce themselves.
• If you’re starting with zero knowledge, sign up to a French course to get started. Introductory dialogues in these courses are useful starting points.
• If you know the basics but are struggling with verb conjugation, grab a stack of flashcards and write all six French pronouns on each one. Shuffle and select a flashcard from your stack. If you receive tu , try to conjugate the verb appeler in the tu form. Make this a habit every day until you get more confident. Repeat the flashcard game with a set of reflexive pronoun flashcards and you’ll be on your way.
• Some other challenges you might face as a French student is making literal translations between English and French. Now, this won’t work very well, particularly because English sentences don’t translate word for word when introducing yourself in French. Just to repeat an example, we don’t normally say “how old are you?” word for word in French. We don’t use the verb to be, either–we’d use the verb avoir in this case. Or, to use another example from this article, we don’t say “I am a writer” in French – it’s not a word for word translation. So, the tip is to avoid literal translations.
• It’s helpful to try and memorise some of these sentences to help you make the best impression. You’ll want to learn to think in French as well, even though this might be a bit challenging at first, so you could record your voice to practice introducing yourself in French. The more you record yourself, the more you’ll remember how to do this.

Make your first impression count in French

Introductions can make a difference to your relationships, but can be challenging in another language like French.

The best way to get better at introducing yourself is to do it often .

Connect with your local French community (ideally in a French-speaking country), or chat with French speakers online.

What are some other important phrases for self-introductions in French?

Comment below.

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How to Introduce Yourself in French

What’s the most important first step when learning French ?

Is it mastering essential daily French phrases ? Is it getting down  travel vocabulary ?

But think about it: for the first conversations you’ll have in French, you’ll need to know how to say hello and introduce yourself.

These easy to use greeting words, phrases and questions will boost your French-speaking skills and give you confidence in your early French conversations.

Simple French Introductions

Basic information about you in french, french pleasantries and goodbyes, how to practice french introductions in the real world, and one more thing....

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

French is a language that really embraces its greetings, so learning how to greet someone and introduce yourself is especially important in the language.

When you enter a boulangerie    (bakery), épicerie   (grocery store) or bistro     (small restaurant), it’s generally expected that you greet the employees there even if you don’t necessarily require service at that time. 

You can use the informal version with people younger than you or if you find that your conversation partner is referring to you as tu   (you — informal), but it’s often best to start with the formal vous   (you — formal).

Once you’re feeling confident, check out a French greetings quiz from Quizizz  or a more open-ended one from ProProfs to practice your French greetings.

Now that your conversation partner knows your name, they may want to know some more information about you! Sharing basic information is the first step to making French friends and acquaintances.

It’s always good to meet people, but French-speaking friends are especially valuable if you’re trying to learn the language. They can help you with tricky aspects of language-learning as well as introduce you to the culture of France and the Francophone world .

Q : D’où venez-vous ?     (Where are you from? [formal]) Q : D’où viens-tu  ?     (Where are you from? [informal])

This question is generally asking for a country or region of origin, but you’re welcome to name your city or town if it’s a major or well-known one like New York City or London.

A: Je viens de…   (I am from…) 

Or you may be asked:

Q: Où habitez-vous  ?   (Where do you live? [formal]) Q : Où habites-tu ? (Where do you live? [informal])

A: J’habite à…   (I live in…) and the name of the city where you live.

In return, to keep the conversation going, reply:

Q : Et vous ?   (and you? [formal]) Q : Et tu ?   (and you? [informal])

Are you interested in learning how to say country names in French? Practice with this quiz from Sporcle !

As in many parts of the world, it’s sometimes perceived as impolite to ask about age in France, especially if you’re a man asking a woman her age. But if it does come up:

Q: Quel âge as-tu  ?   (How old are you? [informal]) Q: Quel âge avez-vous ?   (How old are you? [formal])

To respond, you can say:

A : J’ai … ans. (I am … years old.)

You’ll notice that in French, you use  avoir (to have) when talking about how old you are, not  être (to be). So, it’s kind of like saying: “How many years do you have?” “I have … years.”

Another common question that people will ask during introductory conversations is “what do you do for work?” In French, you ask:

Q : Quel est ton travail ?   (What is your job? [informal]) Q: Quel est votre travail ?   (What is your job [formal])

To answer, simple say:

A: J e suis …   (I am) and state the job or profession .

Keep in mind that you don’t add the article “a” (un  or  une) before the job in French like in English. For example, you would simply say:

A: Je suis professeur.   (I am a teacher.)

And in order to understand your conversation partner’s response, you’ll want to have a solid vocabulary base of French professions. To practice popular profession names in French, try this quiz from Lawless French .

Learning languages is fun, and since you’re learning French, you’ll probably get asked about what languages you speak. People may ask: 

Q: Quelle langue parles-tu ?   (What language do you speak? [informal]) Q : Quelle langue parlez-vous ? (What language do you speak [formal])

To answer, you say:

A : Je parle…   (I speak…) and then name the language.

You can add multiple languages by linking them with  et  (and).

You can also say what languages you’re studying by saying

A: J ‘ étudie…     (I am studying).

For example, as a learner, you might say:

A: J e parle anglais et j’étudie français     (I speak English and I’m learning French).

Okay, your conversation is going well: you’re past the basics and now you need something interesting to talk about. This is a great time to discuss interests and hobbies. Someone may ask:

Q: Qu’est-ce que tu aimes faire ?   (What do you like to do? [informal]) Q : Qu’est-ce que vous aimez faire ?   (What do you like to do? [formal])

To answer, you can say:

A: J’aime…   (I like) and then list a noun or a verb.

For example, I would say something like:

A : J’aime voyager, lire et étudier les langues étrangères.   (I like to travel, read and study foreign languages).

You could also say:

A: Je m’intéresse à…   (I am interested in) and then name a noun or two, such as: like,

A: Je m’intéresse à la culture française.   (I am interested in French culture).

I would recommend looking up your hobbies and interests in French so you’re prepared, and then taking a look at this Sporcle quiz of common hobbies .

All good things come to an end, don’t they?

When the conversation is over, you could simply say:

Enchanté   (charmed) to indicate you’re happy to meet someone.

In formal contexts, you could say:

C’est un plaisir de faire votre connaissance . (It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.) C’est un plaisir de vous rencontrer . (It is a pleasure to meet you).

Note the difference in pronoun use here. In the first sentence, you are using the possessive pronoun votre (your), whereas in the second, you have to use the object pronoun vous (you).

To say goodbye, say:

au revoir   (goodbye) à bientôt   (see you later)

À bientôt  is less formal than au revoir , but I’d say it’s an appropriate way to say goodbye to your nouvel ami français     (new French friend).

At this point, you may be thinking: sure, reading and typing these greetings is one thing. But what about when I actually want to say them?

We don’t all have the opportunity to step out the front door and introduce ourselves to a native French speaker. But that’s no excuse not to practice your French listening and speaking skills!

There are hundreds of online resources where you can learn and practice your French greetings: check out the language exchange apps HelloTalk and Tandem for meeting and greeting native French speakers through voice messages and calls.

FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.

P.S. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

Try FluentU for FREE!

And with that, my friend, I say  adieu   (goodbye)! You’re off to your first French conversations. Remember—every bonjour or bonsoir could be the first step in a friendship that lasts a lifetime.

FluentU has a wide variety of great content, like interviews, documentary excerpts and web series, as you can see here:

FluentU brings native French videos with reach. With interactive captions, you can tap on any word to see an image, definition and useful examples.

For example, if you tap on the word "crois," you'll see this:

Practice and reinforce all the vocabulary you've learned in a given video with learn mode. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning, and play the mini-games found in our dynamic flashcards, like "fill in the blank."

All throughout, FluentU tracks the vocabulary that you’re learning and uses this information to give you a totally personalized experience. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned.

Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

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How To Talk About Yourself in French (many audio examples)

Talking about yourself in French can be fun if you're hanging out with French speaking friends, students or co-workers.

The situations of life in which you need to present yourself are countless : school, job interviews, professional meetings, administrative stuff, social encounters, dating ...

Introducing yourself in French, that is, saying out your name, age, home country, occupation etc, is not so different than in your native language.

Where things start to differ from culture to culture, is what you actually choose to say about yourself as a French speaker.  And of course the way you choose to say it.

For example, French people often find it unpleasant when a person is talking about him/herself in a self-confident way, which they often consider as bragging.  E.g, talking openly about your qualities or achievements.

In this article, we hear Fred, a French guy, talking about himself, perhaps recording a quick presentation video for a social website.  After hearing the presentation, we comment the spoken French phrases and expressions he's using.

Here's Fred's presentation :

Salut, moi c'est Fred, j'ai 36 ans, je suis de Toulouse, diplômé d'une école de commerce. Je suis commercial chez un concessionnaire auto. Je suis du genre extraverti, sociable, j'adore les contacts. Mon trip à moi, c'est de sortir, m'amuser, mater le foot avec les potes, délirer avec les filles... Je suis quelqu'un de cool, je n'aime pas me prendre la tête.  Je laisse couler ! Je suis célibataire. j'ai été avec quelqu'un pendant deux ans, mais ça n'a pas marché. Je ne supportais plus ses reproches, pourquoi tu fais ci, pourquoi tu fais pas ça ... Sur mon lieu de travail, je vois souvent passer de jolis petits lots... Et sur Facebook aussi. Mon job, c'est pas ma vie.  Je fais mon boulot, je ne cherche pas midi à 14h. Mon chef est du genre chicaneur, alors que moi je suis plutôt zen. Je n'aime pas trop les objectifs, les évaluations, et les patrons prise de tête. Je ne suis pas non plus très fan des clients qui posent des tonnes de questions !

Listen to the audio :

And here's the English version :

Hey, Fred here, 36, from Toulouse, business school graduate. I work as a salesman at a car dealership. I'm the extraverted type, social guy, I love contacts. I get kicks from going out, having fun, watching soccer with my boys, hanging out with the girls... I'm  a mellow person,  don't like to complicate things.  I just let things roll. I'm single.  I was involved with someone for two years, but it didn't work out. Could no longer stand her complaints, why are you doing this, why don't you do that ... In my workplace I see some hot little numbers go by ... And on Facebook as well. My job is not my life.  I do my work, I try not to complicate things too much. My boss is kind of a nitpicker, whereas I'm more of an easy-going person. I'm not crazy about sales quotas, evaluations, and picky managers. Nor am I a big fan of customers who ask tons of questions !

Talking about yourself in French : who you are, basic information

Fred starts his talk by introducing himself : his name, his age, his home town, his education.

For his name, he uses the phrase :

"Salut, moi c'est Fred"

This is a colloquial way in French to introduce oneself, a bit like saying "Hey, Fred here !"  When talking about yourself, you would only use " Moi c'est ... " in very informal and relaxed situations, e.g. a friend circle.  Otherwise, you would use a more classic :

"Je m'appelle Fred"  or "Mon nom est Fred"

For his age, he could have gone on using an informal style by omitting "j'ai" :

"Salut, moi c'est Fred, 36 ans ..."  (I'm Fred, 36.)

He says "je suis de Toulouse", I'm from Toulouse.  Other ways he could have said it include :

"Je viens de Toulouse" (I come from Toulouse) or "Je suis toulousain"  (I'm a "Toulousan")

He then adds :

"diplômé d'une école de commerce"  (I have a degree from a business school)

Note he omits "je suis" this time.  It's worth noting that the French are highly averse to repeating words - word repetition is considered a very bad thing in French.   French speakers always look for alternative words or phrases to avoid repetition, even if that affects the clarity of the sentence.

For example, in a news report in French about the president of the United States, the journalist will say "the President of the United States" once, but will then refer to him as "the tenant of the White House", or other similar contrived phrases .

Here, the offending phrase would be "je suis", which was already used in "je suis de Toulouse".

There are lots of "ecoles de commerce" (business / management schools) all over France, from small, less competitive ones, to top prestigious schools such as H.E.C. and INSEAD.   Business and Engineering are two of the most common degrees college graduates earn.

Fred goes on saying :

"Je suis commercial chez un concessionnaire auto".

When talking about yourself and your occupation in French, you typically use the construct " être + occupation " :

"Je suis entrepreneur" (I'm an entrepreneur)

"Elle est boulangère"  (she's a baker)

"Il est jardinier"  (he's a gardener)

Click here for more examples on discussing your occupation at a cocktail party.

Note he uses the phrase "concessionnaire auto" ( car dealership).  Native French speakers love to shorten words in everyday spoken French, here "concessionnaire auto" is short for "concessionnaire automobile".

Click here for more word shortening examples in spoken French.

Talking about yourself in French : your personality and tastes

Referring to himself, he says :

"Je suis du genre extraverti"  (I'm the extraverted kind)

"Etre du genre" is frequently used in spoken French when talking about yourself or someone else, to mean being of a certain type  :

"Je suis du genre poli"  : I'm the polite type

"Elle est du genre timide"  : she's a shy kind of girl

"Ils sont du genre stressé"  : they are the stressed out kind

We also use " je suis plutôt + adjective "  for a similar meaning :

"Je suis plutôt calme (comme garçon)"  :  I'm more of a quiet boy

Or, combining the two constructs, you can say :

"Il est plutôt du genre nerveux !"  (he's more of the nervous type)

The phrase  "j'adore les contacts" is commonly used in French to mean "I love social interactions" - an important aspect of a person's personality, both in the personal or professional realm.

Fred then starts a sentence with :

" mon trip, c'est  ... "

This is a colloquial French phrase to say : the things that I like, the things that make me tick, my thing is.  A phrase you may often employ when talking about yourself :

"Son trip c'est le sport !"  (sports are what makes her tick)

"C'est quoi ton trip dans la vie ?"   (what's your thing in life ? What do you like ?)

"Moi,  mon trip, c'est la danse"  (danse is my thing)

Fred is a party guy, likes to go out and have fun :

"Sortir, m'amuser"  (go out, have fun)

Another way to say "sortir" is "faire la fête" (to party) :

"J'adore faire la fête !"

He could have used "s'éclater" instead of "s'amuser" :

"J'aime m'éclater"  (I like to have fun, have a ball)

As he talks about himself and the things he likes to do, he says :

"Mon trip, c'est de mater le foot avec les potes"

The verb " mater " is a very colloquial, even slanguy French word for "to watch".   It's often used in slang to mean "check out", often in the context of checking out girls / guys :

"Il n'arrête pas de mater les filles"  (he keeps checking out the girls)

"Arrête de mater !"  (stop staring !)

In our dialogue, there's no sexual connotation, but using the verb "mater" sounds cooler and more relaxed, a reference to the population that most frequently uses these words, i.e. the "cool and tough" youth population in rough city areas.

French speakers frequently say :

"On va mater un film ?"  (shall we watch a movie ?)

or "on va se mater un film ?"

"On mate un petit match de tennis" (we're watching a tennis game for a little while)

Fred likes to watch soccer games with his friends :

"avec les potes"

The word " pote " is another colloquial French term for friends, buddies, pals :

"Je vais au restau avec un pote"  (I'm going to the restaurant with a buddy)

"Avec des potes on part en Grèce"  (with my buddies we're going to Greece)

Saying " avec les potes " (vs. "avec mes potes") is like saying "with the boys", or if it's a woman speaking, "with the girls", suggesting your everyday friends.

He also says "délirer avec les filles", which in French literally means talking crazy with the girls, talk nonsense, babble, rave.  The expression " délirer " normally refers to being delirious, but is often used in spoken French to mean hanging out and talking about fun stuff.

So here, "délirer avec les filles" really means "hanging out with the girls".

Other examples :

"On s'est posé et on a déliré pendant deux heures"  (we hung our and talked about fun stuff for 2 hours)

"On a bien déliré à propos de musique"  (we talked away about music)

"On s'est fait un délire toute la soirée"  (we talked about fun stuff all evening)

The phrase "se faire un délire" is often used instead of just "délirer".

Fred then says :

"Je suis quelqu'un de cool"

French speakers often use " je suis quelqu'un (de, qui) " when talking about themselves, referring to themselves in the third person.  For example, you may talk about yourself saying :

"Je suis quelqu'un de très patient"  (I'm a very patient person)

"C'est quelqu'un de très ponctuel"  (she's a very puntual person)

"je suis quelqu'un qui n'aime pas les disputes  (I don't like arguments)

French people are often keen on being modest, and quite averse to what they see as bragging.  So, when talking about yourself, using "je suis quelqu'un de (+ adjective)" will often be perceived as more pleasant than "je suis (+ adjective)", because it's a more indirect way of referring to your own self  : you're NOT the center of the universe !

Click here for more about why you need to be modest in French.

Fred also adds :

"Je n'aime pas me prendre la tête."

In colloquial spoken French, the phrase " se prendre la tête ", possibly a reference to the gesture of holding your head when dealing with a complex issue, is a very colloquial expression for saying : to make simple things more complicated than they are, or to worry about things too much.

So Fred is saying he doesn't like to complicate his life by worrying about things unuyly. In other words, he lets things slide.

" je laisse couler "  (I let things slide, flow, I don't get hung up about anything)

Note that "se prendre la tête avec quelqu'un" means to have an argument, a quarrel, with someone.

Talking about yourself in French : your love life

He then goes on to talk about his love life.  He's currently single, but hasn't always been :

"j'ai été avec quelqu'un pendant deux ans"  (I was with someone for 2 years)

When talking about yourself and your relationship status in French, you typically use " être avec " for being in a relationship :

"Je suis avec une française en ce moment"  (I'm dating / going out with a French woman these days)

"Je suis avec quelqu'un depuis longtemps"  (I've been in a relationship for a long time)

Note how "être avec" translates literally to "to be with" in English, which has a similar meaning.  To clearly express the notion of a relationship, you typically add an element of time in the sentence ("depuis longtemps").

Fred doesn't say "depuis deux ans" but " pendant deux ans", because his relationship has already ended - another cue is his use of "j'ai été" (passé composé).

He then adds "mais ça n'a pas marché"  (it didn't work out)

The phrase "ça marche" (and "ça marche pas") is extremely common in everydat colloquial French.  You use " ça marche /   ça a marché " (or negative) to express that something succeeded or failed :

"Ça a marché tes exams ?"  (did your exams work out well ?)  Note the shortened word "exam", normally "examen".

"Ça marche le boulot ?"  (is your work going well ?)

"J'ai posé ma candidature mais ça n'a pas marché"  (I applied but it didn't work out)

Note that it's particularly common in French to use "ça n'a pas marché" when referring to a relationship.

In everyday spoken French, you'll also hear the phrase "ça marche" used for "OK", "sure", "deal", or "see ya" :

"On se voit demain ?"  "Ça marche !"  (shall we meet tomorrow ? Sure)

"Bon à plus tard !"  "Ça marche !"  (see you later !  See you)

Fred then explains why his relationship ended :

"Je ne supportais plus ses reproches"

The verb " supporter " in French typically means to stand, to bear, to put up with :

"Je dois te supporter toute la journée"  (I have to put up with you all day)

"J'ai du mal à supporter cette situation"  (I have trouble putting up with this situation)

"Je ne la supporte pas !"  (I can't stand her)

Click here to watch a video dialogue and lesson in French about people who can't stand either either (uses the word "supporter")

Fred can't stand his girlfriend's constant complains, accusations : " reproches "

"Tu me fais beaucoup de reproches"  (you blame me for  / blame me for too many things)

"Il te reproche de ne pas l'écouter" (he blames you for not listening to him)

He gives an illustration of his girlfriend's nagging :

"pourquoi tu fais ci, pourquoi tu fais pas ça ..."  (why do you do this, why don't you do that)

Fred goes on to explains how he meets women as a single guy, including at work :

"Sur mon lieu de travail"

This French phrase is commonly used to refer to the place where you work.  It's typically an office space or a public place such as a restaurant, but it can be something else, for example if you work outdoors.

In Fred's case, he's referring to the car showroom where he works as a sales person.

"Je vois souvent passer de jolis petits lots"

The French phrase " joli petit lot " refers to a pretty girl, an expression that brings up images of a petite, neat-looking and well-dressed woman seeking to purchase a new vehicle.

Stronger French expressions to designate a hot looking girl include :

"une pin-up" (old fashion) "un canon" "une bombe" "une beauté" (a beauty) "un bonnasse" (a hottie, vulgar)

He uses the phrase " je vois passer ", meaning"I see them walk by".  So while Fred is standing in the showroom waiting for customers to walk in, he watches pretty girls as they look around and check out the cars for sale.

He also checks out pretty girls on social networks.  Judging from his talk,  one may believe Fred is a real lady-killer, seducing women all day both offline and online...

Talking about yourself in French : work life

Fred goes back to his self-description, saying his job is not the center of his life :

"Mon job, c'est pas ma vie."

He could have said alternatively "ma vie c'est, pas mon job".  That is, he has a life outside of work, work is actually not that important.

The French phrase :

"je fais mon boulot" (I do my job)

is often used by public-sector employees (fonctionnaires) or people with low motivation at work.  It's a bit like saying "I do what I have to do, what they pay me for".

This idea is further confirmed by the phrase that follows :

"je ne cherche pas midi à 14 heures"

This French expression literally means "I don't look for noon at 2 oclock", possibly referring to the position of the hands of a clock.  Common English translations of this expression include :

"I don't overthink things" "I don't make a mountain out of a mole hill"

French speakers commonly say, in everyday life :

"Il ne faut pas chercher midi à quatorze heures"

that is, there's no need to look for complicated things, this matter is simpler than it looks.

For example, someone you know is looking upset, and you're wondering if you've said or done something wrong.  You talk to a common friend about it, and he says :

"Elle est juste fatiguée, il ne faut pas chercher midi à 14 heures"   (she's just tired, don't work your brain too much trying to figure out what's wrong)

Talking about his boss, Fred says ".

"mon chef est du genre chicaneur"  (my boss is the nitpicking kind)

In French, the verb "chicaner" means to nibble / quibble :

"On ne va pas chicaner pour quelques centimes !"  (we're not going to quibble over a few cents)

Note that in Canadian French (Québec), "chicaner" is used in a different way and means arguing, quarreling.

In contrast to his boss, Fred says he's a mellow kind of guy :

"Je suis plutôt zen"

French speakers use the word "zen" a lot when referring to a relaxed, serene person or situation :

"Elle est très zen"  (she's very calm, serene, collected)

"c'est plutôt zen ici !"  (this place is quite calm, relaxed)

Fred adds "... alors que moi je suis zen". When talking about yourself in French, you can use the the phrase "alors que moi"  (whereas I ...) to highlight a contrast with someone else :

"Il a les yeux bleus, alors que moi j'ai les yeux marrons"  (he has blue eyes whereas I have brown eyes)

"Je n'aime pas trop les objectifs, les évaluations, ni les patrons prise de tête."

The phrase " je n'aime pas trop " is very frequently used in colloquial French conversation.  We typically mean "I don't like", but in French saying "je n'aime pas" is considered a strong statement which can be unpleasant to the listener.

In general, French speakers use "pas trop" a lot to mitigate their negative statements :

"Je n'aime pas trop les fruits"  (I don't like fruits)

"Elle n'a pas trop la forme"  (she's not in good shape)

"On ne regarde pas trop la télé" (we don't watch TV)

Of course, there are cases where " pas trop " actually means "not too much", but if you've been around French people for long enough, you probably noticed it's often used as a way to damper negative statements.

In Fred's case, he's clearly saying he does NOT like sales objectives, evals and picky managers.  We can even safely say he actually HATES those things.

Notice the phrase "les patrons prise de tête".  It's a very colloquial French phrase related to the phrase "se prendre la tête", which as we saw earlier, means to make things complicated, to worry a lot about small things.

So " prise de tête " is used as an adjective to refer to someone who "prend la tête", that is someone who is a pain, who creates complication and stress to others (as opposed to self for " se prendre la tête").

"Ce type est vraiment prise de tête !"  (this guy is really a pain) = "il me prend la tête"  (he stresses me out, makes me anxious)

Fred says :

"Je ne suis pas non plus très fan des clients qui posent des tonnes de questions !"

The French phrase " je ne suis pas fan de " (I'm not a fan of) is another way of saying "je n'aime pas trop", which in turn typically means "je n'aime pas" :

"Je ne suis pas fan de la nourriture asiatique"  (I'm not a fan of Asian food)

"Je ne suis pas très fan de la musique classique"  (I'm not crazy about classical music)

Fred is not a big fan of clients who ask tons of questions.  The colloquial French phrase "des tonnes de" is similar to the English "tons of" :

"Il n'a pas des tonnes de fric"  (he doesn't have tons of money - "fric" is slang)

"Il y a des tonnes de rochers"  (there are tons of rocks)

"On n'a pas des tonnes de possibilités"  (we don't have tons of options)

An alternative phrase you can use for "des tonnes de" is "des tas de" :

"Il y a des tas de gens qui font pareil" (there are tons of people who do the same)

Wrapping up

I hope what you've learned through Fred's self-presentation will be helpful to you the next time you need to talk about yourself in French.

I also hope you are more a professional worker than Fred is ...  But even if you are, ne vous prenez pas trop la tête ! Ne cherchez pas toujours midi à quatorze heures.

If you liked this article, leave me a comment below !  And please share it with your friends using the buttons below the comments.

Until next time !

Click to download the MP3 files for this article (zip)

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One Comment

Great Article!

Again, there are so many informal, colloquial phrases in it that are just not taught in schools and institutions. For example, “c’est mon trip” was something I’ve heard when among French friends but did not really know what it meant!

Also found it interesting just how much French speakers hate repetition with such a passion!

Comments are closed.

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Write an essay in French

Beyond the fact that writing an essay in French can be a good practice to improve your writing, you may also be asked to write one during your schooling. So, it is important to study the topic of French essay writing and get some useful tips..

» Tips and tricks for your French essay » The structure of a French essay » Sample French Essay

Tips and tricks for your French essay

When writing a French essay for school, you should always use a structured approach and good French skills to present your arguments in a focused way. Beyond French skills, there are also important formal requirements for a successful French essay. We will come back to this in detail later. First, you will find some useful tips and tricks that will help you write more compelling and better French essays in the future.

• Have a clear thesis and structure
• Do sufficient research and use reliable sources
• Use examples and arguments to support your thesis
• Avoid plagiarism and cite correctly
• Always check structure, grammar and spelling

When you write your essay at school or university, you need to make sure that the general structure of your essay, the presentation of the arguments and, above all, your French language skills play a role in the mark you will get. This is why you should definitely take a closer look at the structure of an essay as well as the most important grammar rules and formulations for French essays.

The structure of a French essay

In an essay, you deal at length and in detail with a usually given topic. When you write an essay in French, you must follow a certain structure. Below we show you what this structure looks like and give you some tips for writing the most important parts of your essay.

The Introduction

The introduction prepares the main body of your essay. You think of a meaningful title for your essay, you describe your thesis or your question, you give general information on the subject and you prepare your argument by giving an overview of your most important arguments.

Below are examples and phrases that you can use to write the introduction to your essay in French.

The title should be meaningful, concise and reflect the content of the essay.

Introductory paragraph

The first paragraph of your French essay should briefly introduce the topic and engage the reader. Here are some examples to help you write your essay:

Proposal or question

The central proposition or question of your French essay should be a clear and concise definition of the purpose of the essay. Use these examples to get a clearer idea of ​​how to write theses in French:

Overview of Arguments and Structure

At the end of your introduction, describe the structure of the main part of your essay (your outline) and outline your argument. Here are some French expressions that will certainly help you write your essay:

The body of your essay

The main part of your French essay deals with the given topic in detail. The subject is studied from all angles. The main body of your essay follows a thread of argument and discusses in detail the main arguments of your thesis previously made in the introduction.

In the body of the text, you should discuss the subject of your essay in clear and concise language. To achieve this, we give you some wording aids as well as vocabulary and phrases that you can use to write your essay in French.

Formulation tools:

French vocabulary for essays.

In the conclusion of your French essay, you address the thesis of your essay, summarize the main points of your discussion in the main body, and draw a conclusion. On the basis of the arguments and the resulting conclusions, you formulate in the conclusion of your dissertation final thoughts and suggestions for the future. It is important that you do not add new information or new arguments. This should only be done in the body of your text.

Here are some wording guides to help you write your essay in French:

Sample French Essay

Les avantages des voyages linguistiques

Malgré les difficultés potentielles, les voyages linguistiques offrent aux apprenants une occasion unique d'améliorer leurs compétences linguistiques et de découvrir de nouvelles cultures, ce qui en fait un investissement précieux pour leur développement personnel et académique.

Les séjours linguistiques sont des voyages organisés dans le but d'améliorer les compétences linguistiques des participants. Ces voyages peuvent se dérouler dans le pays ou à l'étranger et durer d'un week-end à plusieurs semaines. L'un des principaux avantages des séjours linguistiques est l'immersion. Entourés de locuteurs natifs, les apprenants sont contraints de pratiquer et d'améliorer leurs compétences linguistiques dans des situations réelles.Il s'agit d'une méthode d'apprentissage beaucoup plus efficace que le simple fait d'étudier une langue dans une salle de classe.

Un autre avantage des séjours linguistiques est l'expérience culturelle. Voyager dans un nouveau pays permet aux apprenants de découvrir de nouvelles coutumes, traditions et modes de vie, et de se familiariser avec l'histoire et la culture du pays. Cela enrichit non seulement l'expérience d'apprentissage de la langue, mais contribue également à élargir les horizons et à accroître la sensibilisation culturelle.

Cependant, les séjours linguistiques peuvent également présenter des inconvénients. Par exemple, le coût du voyage et de l'hébergement peut être élevé, en particulier pour les séjours de longue durée. En outre, les apprenants peuvent être confrontés à la barrière de la langue ou à un choc culturel, ce qui peut être difficile à surmonter. Le coût et les difficultés potentielles des séjours linguistiques peuvent sembler décourageants, mais ils offrent des avantages précieux en termes d'épanouissement personnel et scolaire.

Les compétences linguistiques et les connaissances culturelles acquises peuvent déboucher sur de nouvelles opportunités d'emploi et améliorer la communication dans un cadre professionnel. Les bourses et les aides financières rendent les séjours linguistiques plus accessibles. Le fait d'être confronté à une barrière linguistique ou à un choc culturel peut également être l'occasion d'un développement personnel. Ces avantages l'emportent largement sur les inconvénients et font des séjours linguistiques un investissement qui en vaut la peine.

En conclusion, malgré les difficultés potentielles, les séjours linguistiques offrent aux apprenants une occasion unique d'améliorer leurs compétences linguistiques et de découvrir de nouvelles cultures, ce qui en fait un investissement précieux pour le développement personnel et académique. Qu'il s'agisse d'un débutant ou d'un apprenant avancé, un voyage linguistique est une expérience à ne pas manquer.

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Lesson 1 of French for beginners: introduce yourself in French

French lesson 1 of communication: introduce yourself in french.

Knowing how to introduce yourself is the first thing you need to learn in French. This will allow you to establish a simple first contact with a French speaker. This lesson will also be useful for the first part (guided conversation) of the DELF A1 speaking test. The video below will teach you how to simply introduce yourself in French. You will be able to greet and express your first name, your age, your nationality, the city where you live, your occupation (your profession):

Introduce yourself in French: example of a dialogue in video

Oral production and interaction activities to introduce yourself in French

Activity 1 : Using this presentation template as inspiration:

Bonjour, Je m’appelle Thomas. J’ai 26 ans. Je suis français. J’habite à Paris. Je suis professeur de français.

Introduce yourself by making a video and post your video in Flemotion's Vimeo group:  https://vimeo.com/groups/flemotion

We will select some videos to make a nice cut that we will post on our Youtube channel.

Activity 2 : With a friend, make a video using the model below and post your video in Flemotion's Vimeo group:  https://vimeo.com/groups/flemotion

Bonjour, Je m’appelle Thomas. Et toi ? Votre interlocuteur répondra : Je m’appelle (son prénom). J’ai 26 ans. Et toi ? Votre interlocuteur répondra : J’ai (son âge) ans. Je suis français. Et toi ? Votre interlocuteur répondra : Je suis (sa nationalité). J’habite à Paris. Et toi ? Votre interlocuteur répondra : J’habite à (sa ville).

Je suis professeur de français. Et toi ? Votre interlocuteur répondra : Je suis (son métier).

Written production activity to introduce yourself in French

Introduce yourself at delf a1.

During the first part (guided conversation) of the DELF A1 speaking test, the examiner will ask you questions to know your first name, your age, your nationality, the city where you live, your occupation. The video below is a very good example of the first part (guided conversation) of DELF A1 speaking test:

Once you have mastered this first French lesson for beginners “introduce yourself in French”, you can move on to the next French communication lesson:

Lesson 2 of French for beginners: introduce someone in French

You can find other communication lessons in French  by clicking here . You can also perfect your learning of the French language thanks to our:

French conjugation lessons

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DELF-DALF exams lessons

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Common French phrases: talking about yourself

If you’re learning French, being able to talk about yourself is a great way to start practicing the language.

In this lesson, we’ll go over some common French phrases for talking about yourself.

Je m’appelle ____ . (My name is ____.) This phrase is used to introduce yourself.

J’ai ____ ans. (I am ____ years old.) This phrase is used to express your age.

Je viens de ____ . (I am from ____.) This phrase is used to indicate where you come from.

Je suis étudiant(e). (I am a student.) This phrase is used to indicate your occupation or current status.

J’aime _____. (I like _____.) This phrase is used to express your interests or hobbies.

Je parle _____. (I speak _____.) This phrase is used to indicate the languages you speak.

J’ai ____ frères et sœurs. (I have ____ brothers and sisters.) This phrase is used to indicate the number of siblings you have.

Je suis célibataire. (I am single.) This phrase is used to express your relationship status.

Mon anniversaire est le ____. (My birthday is on ____.) This phrase is used to express your birthday.

Je suis né(e) en ____. (I was born in ____.) This phrase is used to indicate your birthplace.

Learning these common French phrases can help you introduce yourself and communicate with others.

Additionally, it’s helpful to learn some basic French vocabulary related to personal information, such as family members, occupations, and hobbies.

With practice and persistence, you’ll soon be able to speak confidently about yourself in French.

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Can You Lose Your Native Tongue?

After moving abroad, I found my English slowly eroding. It turns out our first languages aren’t as embedded as we think.

Credit... Artwork by PABLO DELCÁN

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By Madeleine Schwartz

Madeleine Schwartz is a writer and editor who grew up speaking English and French. She has been living in Paris since 2020.

• May 14, 2024

It happened the first time over dinner. I was saying something to my husband, who grew up in Paris where we live, and suddenly couldn’t get the word out. The culprit was the “r.” For the previous few months, I had been trying to perfect the French “r.” My failure to do so was the last marker of my Americanness, and I could only do it if I concentrated, moving the sound backward in my mouth and exhaling at the same time. Now I was saying something in English — “reheat” or “rehash” — and the “r” was refusing to come forward. The word felt like a piece of dough stuck in my throat.

Listen to this article, read by Soneela Nankani

Other changes began to push into my speech. I realized that when my husband spoke to me in English, I would answer him in French. My mother called, and I heard myself speaking with a French accent. Drafts of my articles were returned with an unusual number of comments from editors. Then I told a friend about a spill at the grocery store, which — the words “conveyor belt” vanishing midsentence — took place on a “supermarket treadmill.” Even back home in New York, I found my mouth puckered into the fish lips that allow for the particularly French sounds of “u,” rather than broadened into the long “ay” sounds that punctuate English.

My mother is American, and my father is French; they split up when I was about 3 months old. I grew up speaking one language exclusively with one half of my family in New York and the other language with the other in France. It’s a standard of academic literature on bilingual people that different languages bring out different aspects of the self. But these were not two different personalities but two separate lives. In one version, I was living with my mom on the Upper West Side and walking up Columbus Avenue to get to school. In the other, I was foraging for mushrooms in Alsatian forests or writing plays with my cousins and later three half-siblings, who at the time didn’t understand a word of English. The experience of either language was entirely distinct, as if I had been given two scripts with mirroring supportive casts. In each a parent, grandparents, aunts and uncles; in each, a language, a home, a Madeleine.

I moved to Paris in October 2020, on the heels of my 30th birthday. This was both a rational decision and something of a Covid-spurred dare. I had been working as a journalist and editor for several years, specializing in European politics, and had reported across Germany and Spain in those languages. I had never professionally used French, in which I was technically fluent. It seemed like a good idea to try.

When I arrived in France, however, I realized my fluency had its limitations: I hadn’t spoken French with adults who didn’t share my DNA. The cultural historian Thomas Laqueur, who grew up speaking German at home in West Virginia, had a similar experience, as the linguist Julie Sedivy notes in “Memory Speaks,” her book about language loss and relearning her childhood Czech. Sedivy cites an essay of Laqueur’s in which he describes the first time he learned that German was not, in fact, a secret family language. He and his brother had been arguing over a Popsicle in front of the grocery store near his house:

A lady came up to us and said, in German, that she would give us a nickel so that we could each have a treat of our own. I don’t remember buying a second Popsicle, but I do remember being very excited at finding someone else of our linguistic species. I rushed home with the big news.

My own introduction to speaking French as an adult was less joyous. After reaching out to sources for a different article for this magazine with little success, I showed the unanswered emails to a friend. She gently informed me that I had been yelling at everyone I hoped to interview.

Compared with English, French is slower, more formal, less direct. The language requires a kind of politeness that, translated literally, sounds subservient, even passive-aggressive. I started collecting the stock phrases that I needed to indicate polite interaction. “I would entreat you, dear Madam ...” “Please accept, dear sir, the assurances of my highest esteem.” It had always seemed that French made my face more drawn and serious, as if all my energy were concentrated into the precision of certain vowels. English forced my lips to widen into a smile.

But going back to English wasn’t so easy, either. I worried about the French I learned somehow infecting my English. I edit a magazine, The Dial, which I founded in part to bring more local journalists and writers to an English-speaking audience. But as I worked on texts by Ukrainians or Argentines or Turks, smoothing over syntax and unusual idioms into more fluid English prose, I began to doubt that I even knew what the right English was.

Back in New York on a trip, I thanked the cashier at Duane Reade by calling him “dear sir.” My thoughts themselves seemed twisted in a series of interlocking clauses, as though I was afraid that being direct might make me seem rude. It wasn’t just that my French was getting better: My English was getting worse.

For a long time, a central question in linguistics was how people learn language. But in the past few decades, a new field of study called “language attrition” has emerged. It concerns not learning but forgetting: What causes language to be lost?

People who move to new countries often find themselves forgetting words in their first language, using odd turns of phrase or speaking with a newly foreign accent. This impermanence has led linguists to reconsider much of what was once assumed about language learning. Rather than seeing the process of becoming multilingual as cumulative, with each language complementing the next, some linguists see languages as siblings vying for attention. Add a new one to the mix, and competition emerges. “There is no age at which a language, even a native tongue, is so firmly cemented into the brain that it can’t be dislodged or altered by a new one,” Sedivy writes. “Like a household that welcomes a new child, a single mind can’t admit a new language without some impact on other languages already residing there.”

As my time in France hit the year mark and then the two-year mark, I began to worry about how much French was changing my English — that I might even be losing some basic ability to use the language I considered closest to my core. It wasn’t an idle concern. A few years earlier, when living in Berlin, I found the English of decades-long expats mannered and strange; they spoke more slowly and peppered in bits of German that sounded forced and odd. As an editor, I could see it in translators too: The more time people spent in their new language, the more their English prose took on a kind of Germanic overtone. Would the same thing happen to me?

Even languages that seem firmly rooted in the mind can be subject to attrition. “When you have two languages that live in your brain,” says Monika S. Schmid, a leader in the field of language attrition at the University of York, “every time you say something, every time you take a word, every time you put together a sentence, you have to make a choice. Sometimes one language wins out. And sometimes the other wins.” People who are bilingual, she says, “tend to get very, very good at managing these kinds of things and using the language that they want and not having too much interference between the two.” But even so, there’s often a toll: the accent, the grammar or a word that doesn’t sound quite right.

What determines whether a language sticks or not? Age, Schmid says, is an important factor. “If you look at a child that is 8, 9 or 10 years old, and see what that child could do with the language and how much they know — they’re basically fully fledged native speakers.” But just as they are good language learners, children are good language forgetters. Linguists generally agree that a language acquired in early childhood tends to have greater emotional resonance for its speaker. But a child who stops speaking a language before age 12 can completely lose it. For those who stop speaking a language in childhood, that language can erode — so much so that when they try to relearn it, they seem to have few, if any, advantages, Schmid says, compared with people learning that language from scratch. Even a language with very primal, deep connections can fade into the recesses of memory.

In her book, Sedivy cites a study conducted in France that tested a group of adults who were adopted from Korea between the ages of 3 and 8 . Taken into French homes, they quickly learned French and forgot their first language. The researchers compared these adults with a group of monolingual French speakers. The participants born in Korea could not identify Korean sentences significantly better than the French control group. Intimate moments of childhood can be lost, along with the language in which they took place.

Researchers have stressed that a first language used through later years can be remarkably resilient and often comes back when speakers return home. But even adults who move to a new country can find themselves losing fluency in their first language. Merel Keijzer, a linguist at the University of Groningen who studies bilingualism, surveyed a group of Dutch speakers who emigrated as adults to Australia. A classic theory of linguistic development, she told me, argues that new language skills are superimposed on older ones like layers of an onion. She thus expected that she would find a simple language reversion: The layers that were acquired later would be most likely to go first.

The reality was more complicated. In a paper Keijzer wrote with Schmid, she found that the Dutch speakers in Australia did not regress in the way that she predicted. “You saw more Dutch coming into their English, but you also saw more English coming into their Dutch,” she says. The pattern wasn’t simple reversion so much as commingling. They “tended to just be less able to separate their languages.” As they aged, the immigrants didn’t go back to their original language; they just had difficulty keeping the two vocabularies apart.

In “Alfabet/Alphabet: A Memoir of a First Language,” the poet Sadiqa de Meijer, who was born in Amsterdam, discusses her own experiences speaking Dutch in Canada. She worries that her language has become “amusingly formal” now that she doesn’t speak it regularly. A friend tells her that she now sounds “like a book.” Unless she is in the Netherlands, she writes: “Dutch is primarily a reading language to me now. The skill of casual exchanges is in gradual atrophy.” Her young daughter does not want to speak Dutch. “Stop Dutching me!” she says. For De Meijer, “people who speak a language they learned after early childhood live in chronic abstraction.”

This state of abstraction was one that I feared. On some level, the worry felt trivial: In a world where languages are constantly being lost to English, who would complain about a lack of contact with the language responsible for devouring so many others? The Europeans that I interviewed for work deplored the imperial nature of English; the only way to have their ideas heard was to express them in a language imposed by globalization. But what I missed was not the universal English of academics nor the language of peppy LinkedIn posts but the particular sounds that I grew up with: the near-rudeness of the English spoken in New York and its rushed cadence, the way that the bottoms of words sometimes were swallowed and cut off, as if everyone already knew what was being suggested and didn’t need to actually finish the thought. I missed the variegated vocabulary of New York, where English felt like an international, rather than a globalized language, enriched with the particular words of decades of immigrants. I began to listen to “The Brian Lehrer Show” on WNYC, a public-radio station in New York, with strange fervor, finding myself excited whenever someone called in from Staten Island.

The idea that my facility with English might be weakening brought up complicated feelings, some more flattering than others. When a journalism student wrote to ask if I would be a subject in his dissertation about “the experiences of nonnative English-speaking journalists” in media, I took the email as a personal slight. Were others noticing how much I struggled to find the right word?

A change in language use, whether deliberate or unconscious, often affects our sense of self. Language is inextricably tied up with our emotions; it’s how we express ourselves — our pain, our love, our fear. And that means, as Schmid, the language-attrition expert at the University of York, has pointed out, that the loss of a language can be tied up with emotion too. In her dissertation, Schmid looked at German-speaking Jews who emigrated to England and the United States shortly before World War II and their relationship with their first language. She sent questionnaires asking them how difficult it was for them to speak German now and how they used the language — “in writing in a diary, for example, or while dreaming.”

One woman wrote: “I was physically unable to speak German. ... When I visited Germany for 3 or 4 days in 1949 — I found myself unable to utter one word of German although the frontier guard was a dear old man. I had to speak French in order to answer his questions.”

Her husband concurred: “My wife in her reply to you will have told you that she could and did not want to speak German because they killed her parents. So we never spoke German to each other, not even intimately.”

Another wrote: “I feel that my family did a lot for Germany and for Düsseldorf, and therefore I feel that Germany betrayed me. America is my country, and English is my language.”

Schmid divided the émigrés into three groups, tying each of them to a point in Germany’s history. The first group left before September 1935, that is, before the Nuremberg race laws. The second group left between the enactment of those laws and Kristallnacht, in November 1938. The last group comprised those who left between Kristallnacht and August 1939, just before Germany invaded Poland.

What Schmid found was that of all the possible factors that might affect language attrition, the one that had a clear impact was how much of the Nazi regime they experienced. Emigration date, she wrote, outweighed every other factor; those who left last were the ones who were the least likely to be perceived as “native” speakers by other Germans, and they often had a weaker relationship to that language:

It appears that what is at the heart of language attrition is not so much the opportunity to use the language, nor the age at the time of emigration. What matters is the speaker’s identity and self-perception. ... Someone who wants to belong to a speech community and wants to be recognized as a member is capable of behaving accordingly over an extremely long stretch of time. On the other hand, someone who rejects that language community — or has been rejected and persecuted by it — may adapt his or her linguistic behavior so as not to appear to be a member any longer.

In other words, the closeness we have with a language is not just a product of our ability to use it but of other emotional valences as well. If language is a form of identity, it is one that may be changed by circumstance or even by force of will.

Stories of language loss often mask other, larger losses. Lily Wong Fillmore, a linguist who formerly taught at the University of California, Berkeley, once wrote about a family who emigrated to California several years after leaving China’s Canton province in 1989. One child, Kai-fong, was 5 when he arrived in the United States. At this point in his life, he could speak and understand only Cantonese. While his younger sister learned English almost immediately and made friends easily, Kai-fong, who was shy, did not have the same experience in school. His classmates called him “Chi, chi, chia pet” because his hair stuck out. Boys mocked the polyester pants his grandmother sewed for him. Pretty soon, he and his classmates were throwing rocks at one another.

Once Kai-fong started learning English, he stopped speaking Cantonese, even to members of his own family. As Wong Fillmore writes: “When Grandmother spoke to him, he either ignored her or would mutter a response in English that she did not understand. ... The more the adults scolded, the more sullen and angry Kai-fong became.” By 10, he was known as Ken and no longer understood Cantonese well. The family began to split along linguistic lines. Two children born in the United States never learned Cantonese at all. It is a story, Wong Fillmore writes, “that many immigrant families have experienced firsthand.”

The recognition in linguistics of the ease with which mastery of a language can erode comes as certain fundamentals of the field are being re-examined — in particular, the idea that a single, so-called native language shapes your innermost self. That notion is inextricable from 19th-century nationalism, as Jean-Marc Dewaele, a professor at the University of London, has argued. In a paper written with the linguists Thomas H. Bak and Lourdes Ortega, Dewaele notes that many cultures link the first words you speak to motherhood: In French, your native language is a langue maternelle, in Spanish, lengua materna, in German, Muttersprache. Turkish, which calls your first language ana dili, follows the same practice, as do most of the languages of India. Polish is unusual in linking language to a paternal line. The term for native language is język ojczysty, which is related to ojciec, the Polish word for father.

Regarding a first language as having special value is itself the product of a worldview that places national belonging at the heart of individual life. The phrase “native speaker” was first used by the politician and philologist George Perkins Marsh, who spoke of the importance of “home-born English.” It came with more than a light prejudicial overtone. Among Marsh’s recommendations was the need for “special precautions” to protect English from “becoming debased and vulgarized ... by association with depraved beings and unworthy themes.”

The idea of a single, native language took hold in linguistics in the mid-20th century, a uniquely monolingual time in human history. American culture, with its emphasis on assimilation, was especially hostile to the notion that a single person might inhabit multiple languages. Parents were discouraged from teaching their children languages other than English, even if they expressed themselves best in that other language. The simultaneous acquisition of multiple tongues was thought to cause delays in language development and learning. As Aneta Pavlenko, a linguist at Drexel University and the University of York, has noted, families who spoke more than one language were looked down on by politicians and ignored by linguists through the 1970s. “Early bilinguals,” those who learned two languages in childhood, “were excluded from research as ‘unusual’ or ‘messy’ subjects,” she writes. By contrast, late bilinguals, those who learned a second language in school or adulthood, were treated as “representative speakers of their first language.” The fact that they spoke a second language was disregarded. This focus on the importance of a single language may have obscured the historical record, giving the impression that humans are more monolingual and more rigid in their speech than they are.

Pavlenko has sought to show that far from being the historical standard, speaking just one language may be the exception. Her most recent book, a collection of essays by different scholars, takes on the historical “amnesia” that researchers have about the prevalence of multilingualism across the globe. The book looks at examples where multiple languages were the norm: medieval Sicily, where the administrative state processed paperwork in Latin, Greek and Arabic, or the early Pennsylvania court system, where in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was not unusual to hold hearings in German. Even today, Pavlenko sees a split: American academics working in English, often their only language, regard it as the standard for research. Europeans, obliged to work in English as a second language, are more likely to consider that fluency in only one language may be far rarer than conflict among multiple tongues.

According to Dewaele and his colleagues, “the notion of a single native language, determined entirely by the earliest experiences, is also not supported by neurology and neuroscience.” While there are many stories about patients who find themselves speaking their first language after a stroke or dementia, it’s also common for the recovered patients to use the language they spoke right before the accident occurred.

All of this has led some linguists to push against the idea of the “native” speaker, which, as Dewaele says, “has a dark side.” It can be restrictive, stigmatizing accents seen as impure, or making people feel unwelcome in a new home. Speakers who have studied a language, Dewaele says, often know its grammar better than those who picked it up with their family. He himself prefers the term “first-language user” — a slightly clunky solution that definitively decouples the language you speak from the person you are.

Around the time I realized that I had most likely become the No. 1 WNYC listener outside the tristate area, I started to seek out writers who purposefully looked away from their “native” language. Despite the once commonly held belief that a writer could produce original works only in a “mother tongue,” wonderful books have been written in acquired, rather than maternal, languages. Vladimir Nabokov began to write in English shortly before he moved to the United States. French was a vehicle for Samuel Beckett to push his most innovative ideas. “It’s only in Italian that I feel I’m at the center of myself,” Jhumpa Lahiri, who started writing in Italian in her 40s, said in a recent Paris Review interview. “It’s only when I’m writing in Italian that I manage to turn off all those other, judgmental voices, except perhaps my own.”

Could I begin to think about different languages not as two personas I had to choose between but as different moods that might shift depending on circumstance? Aspects of French that I used to find cold began to reveal advantages. The stiff way of addressing strangers offered its own benefits, new ways in which I could conserve personal privacy in a world that constantly demanded oversharing. My conversations in French changed, too: I was finally talking to others not as a child but as an adult.

The author Yoko Tawada, who moved to Germany from Japan in her early 20s, works on books in both Japanese and German; she writes fluidly in both languages. Tawada’s most recent novel to be translated into English, “Scattered All Over the Earth,” explores a future in which Japan is sunken underwater, lost to climate change. A Japanese speaker, possibly the last on earth, looks for a man who she hopes shares her language, only to find that he has been pretending to be Japanese while working at a sushi restaurant.

Using new languages, or even staying within the state of multilingualism, can provide distinct creative advantages. Tawada plays with homonyms and the awkwardness that comes from literal translation. What emerges in her work is not a single language but a betweenness, a tool for the author to invent as she is using it, the scholar Yasemin Yildiz has noted. Yildiz quotes an essay by Tawada called “From the Mother Language to the Language Mother,” in which a narrator describes the ways that learning German taught her to see language differently: Writing in the second language was not a constraint, but a new form of invention. Tawada calls her typewriter a Sprachmutter, or “language mother” — an inversion of the German word for mother tongue. In a first language, we can rarely experience “playful joy,” she writes. “Thoughts cling so closely to words that neither the former nor the latter can fly freely.” But a new language is like a staple remover, which gets rid of everything that sticks and clings.

If the scholarly linguistic consensus once pushed people toward monolingualism, current research suggesting that language acquisition may shift with our circumstances may allow speakers of multiple languages to reclaim self-understanding. In Mirene Arsanios’s chapbook “Notes on Mother Tongues: Colonialism, Class and Giving What You Don’t Have,” Arsanios describes being unsure which language to speak with her son. Her mother, from Venezuela, spoke Spanish, her father, from Lebanon, spoke French; neither feels appropriate to pass on. “Like other languages originating in histories of colonization, my language always had a language problem, something akin to the evacuation of a ‘first’ or ‘native’ tongue — a syntax endemic to the brain and to the heart.”

Is the answer a multitude of languages or a renunciation of one? “Having many languages is my language’s dominant language,” she writes. She must become comfortable with the idea that what she is transmitting to her son is not a single language but questions and identities that are never quite resolved. At the end of the text, she describes speaking with her son “in a tongue reciprocal, abundant and motherless.”

The scholars I talked to stressed that each bilingual speaker is unique: Behind the general categories is a human life, with all its complications. Language acquisition and use may be messier than was envisioned by rigid distinctions of native and nonnative and, at the same time, more individual.

My own grandmother, my mother’s mother, grew up speaking German in Vienna in what was itself a multilingual household. Her mother was Austrian and her father, born in what is now Serbia, spoke German with a thick Hungarian accent. She and her family moved throughout Europe during World War II; to Budapest, Trieste, Lille and eventually escaped through Portugal on a boat carrying cork to New York.

When they arrived in the United States, her mother did not want her to speak German in public. “She felt the animosity to it,” my grandmother recently told me. But my grandmother still wished to. German was also the language of Schiller, she would say. She didn’t go out of her way to speak German, but she didn’t forget it either. She loved German poetry, much of which she still recites, often unprompted, at 95.

When I mentioned Schmid’s research to her, she was slightly dismissive of the idea that her own language use might be shaped by trauma. She said that she found the notion of not speaking German after World War II somewhat absurd, mostly because, to her ear, Hitler spoke very bad German. She berated me instead for not asking about her emotional relationship to French, which she spoke as a schoolgirl in Lille, or Italian, which she spoke in Trieste. Each was the source of memories that might wax and wane as she recalled the foreign words.

Recently, she reconnected with an old classmate from her childhood in Vienna, who also fled Europe during the war, after she recognized her friend’s picture in The New York Post. They speak together in English. Her friend Ruth, she notes, speaks English with a German accent, but does not speak German anymore.

Madeleine Schwartz lives in Paris, where she is founder and editor in chief of The Dial, a magazine of international reporting and writing. She was a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2023 and teaches journalism at Sciences Po Paris.

Read by Soneela Nankani

Narration produced by Tanya Pérez

Engineered by Brian St. Pierre

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