La chambre is the room every beginner describes first, because it is the one you can look at while you learn it. It is also the room an A1 examiner asks about: décrivez votre chambre is one of the oldest questions in the book, and twenty nouns plus a handful of prepositions are enough to answer it for a full minute.
Learn each word with its article, never on its own. Nothing in this list lets you guess the gender from the thing itself: le lit and la couette sit on top of each other, le rideau hangs at la fenêtre, and there is no rule behind any of it. The poster prints the article with the word for exactly that reason.
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The words English speakers get wrong in French
False friends that look like English and mean something else, the numbers that turn into arithmetic, and the expressions that make no sense translated word for word.
- False friends, with what the word really means and the word you wanted
- Seventy to a hundred, written out, with the Belgian and Swiss forms
- Everyday expressions, and what they actually do in a conversation
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The 20 words on the poster
| French | English | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| le lit | bed | Mon lit est sous la fenêtre. |
| l’oreiller (m.) | pillow | Je dors avec deux oreillers. |
| la couette | duvet | En hiver, je prends une couette plus épaisse. |
| le réveil | alarm clock | Mon réveil sonne à sept heures. |
| la table de chevet | bedside table | Mes lunettes sont sur la table de chevet. |
| la lampe | lamp | J’allume la lampe pour lire au lit. |
| le tapis | rug | Il y a un petit tapis à côté du lit. |
| la plante | plant | J’ai mis une plante sur le rebord de la fenêtre. |
| l’armoire (f.) | wardrobe | Mes manteaux sont dans l’armoire. |
| la commode | chest of drawers | Les chaussettes sont dans le tiroir du haut de la commode. |
| le cintre | coat hanger | Mets ta chemise sur un cintre, elle va se froisser. |
| la boîte de rangement | storage box | Les affaires d’hiver sont dans une boîte de rangement sous le lit. |
| le bureau | desk | Je travaille au bureau dans ma chambre. |
| la chaise | chair | La chaise du bureau n’est pas très confortable. |
| la bibliothèque | bookcase | Ma bibliothèque déborde de romans. |
| le panier à linge | laundry basket | Mets ton pyjama dans le panier à linge. |
| la fenêtre | window | J’ouvre la fenêtre cinq minutes chaque matin. |
| le rideau | curtain | Les rideaux sont trop fins, la lumière passe. |
| la porte | door | Ferme la porte, s’il te plaît. |
| le miroir | mirror | Il y a un grand miroir derrière la porte. |
The bed, made up
What a French bed is actually built from. Half of these never appear in a textbook, and all of them appear on the label when you buy one.
| French | English | Note |
|---|---|---|
| le matelas | mattress | The s is silent, and the plural is identical |
| le sommier | bed base, slats | Sold separately from le matelas in almost every French shop |
| la tête de lit | headboard | Literally the head of the bed |
| le drap | sheet | The p is silent. Les draps, plural, is the bedding you change |
| le drap-housse | fitted sheet | Housse means cover, so this is the one with elastic |
| la housse de couette | duvet cover | The cover, while la couette is what goes inside it |
| la taie d’oreiller | pillowcase | Une taie, nothing to do with tais-toi |
| la couverture | blanket | A woven blanket, not a duvet |
| le plaid | throw | Borrowed from English, pronounced plèd |
| le traversin | bolster | The long sausage pillow across the bed, very French |
| l’édredon (m.) | eiderdown, quilt | The old-fashioned ancestor of la couette |
| le linge de lit | bed linen | The whole set, as a shop aisle calls it |
| un lit simple | single bed | Un lit double or un grand lit for the other one |
| les lits superposés (m.) | bunk beds | Always plural |
| le canapé-lit | sofa bed | What a chambre d’amis often really is |
| la lampe de chevet | bedside lamp | Chevet is the bedside, hence table de chevet too |
| la veilleuse | night light | The small one you leave on for a child |
| le store | blind | The thing le rideau is not: a blind, rolled or slatted |
| le volet | shutter | On the outside, closed at night across most of France |
| le placard | built-in cupboard | Fixed to the wall, where l’armoire is furniture you can move |
What you do in a bedroom
The verbs that go with the room. Most of them are reflexive, which is where the real difficulty sits, not in the nouns.
| French | English | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| se coucher | to go to bed | Je me couche vers onze heures. |
| s’endormir | to fall asleep | Je m’endors en cinq minutes. |
| dormir | to sleep | J’ai dormi huit heures. |
| se réveiller | to wake up | Je me réveille avant le réveil. |
| se lever | to get up | Je me lève tout de suite après. |
| faire la grasse matinée | to sleep in | Le dimanche, je fais la grasse matinée. |
| mettre le réveil | to set the alarm | J’ai mis le réveil à six heures et demie. |
| faire son lit | to make one’s bed | Je fais mon lit tous les matins. |
| changer les draps | to change the sheets | On change les draps le samedi. |
| ranger sa chambre | to tidy one’s room | Range ta chambre avant de sortir. |
| s’habiller | to get dressed | Je m’habille devant le miroir. |
| se changer | to get changed | Je me change en rentrant du travail. |
| ouvrir les rideaux | to open the curtains | J’ouvre les rideaux dès que je me lève. |
| aérer la chambre | to air the room | Il faut aérer la chambre dix minutes par jour. |
| éteindre la lumière | to turn off the light | Éteins la lumière, je n’arrive pas à dormir. |
Four traps worth reading twice
Chambre, pièce and salle are three different words for what English calls a room. Une pièce is a room counted on a floor plan: un appartement de trois pièces. Une chambre is specifically a room you sleep in, which is why a hotel sells des chambres and why a French flat advert counts les chambres separately from les pièces. Une salle is a room built for an activity: salle de bain, salle à manger, salle de classe, salle d’attente. Asking combien de chambres when you mean how many rooms will get you an answer about beds.
La couette is not a blanket. It is the thick quilted one you slide into une housse de couette, the standard French bed covering, and English speakers who translate it as blanket end up asking for une couverture, which is the woven kind you fold at the foot of the bed. If you want the full set in a shop, ask for du linge de lit, and expect to buy le drap-housse, la housse de couette and les taies d’oreiller as three separate things.
Le bureau has three meanings and French keeps them all alive at once. It is the desk in your bedroom, the office you go to work in (je vais au bureau), and the office as a department or counter: le bureau de poste, le bureau de tabac, le bureau de vote. The plural is bureaux, with an x. Context does the sorting, and in a bedroom description it is always the piece of furniture.
Le réveil is the clock, se réveiller is the verb, and the two are easy to cross. Mon réveil sonne is my alarm goes off. Je me réveille is I wake up. Au réveil means on waking, as a moment rather than an object: au réveil, j’ai mal à la tête. And you mettre or régler le réveil, never poser it. The older word réveille-matin still exists, mostly in writing and in the mouths of grandparents.