Describing your day is the single most useful thing a beginner can learn to do. It is the first DELF A1 speaking topic, it is the answer to half of all small talk, and it forces you to use the présent properly across a dozen different verbs.
It is also the natural way into reflexive verbs, which have no real English equivalent and which learners tend to avoid for far too long. Ten of the eighteen verbs below are reflexive.
The 18 verbs, in the order of a day
| French | English | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| se réveiller | to wake up | Je me réveille à sept heures. |
| se lever | to get up | Elle se lève tout de suite après. |
| se doucher | to shower | Il se douche le matin. |
| se brosser les dents | to brush your teeth | Je me brosse les dents après le petit déjeuner. |
| se peigner | to comb your hair | Elle se peigne devant le miroir. |
| s'habiller | to get dressed | Je m'habille en cinq minutes. |
| se sécher les cheveux | to dry your hair | Elle se sèche les cheveux. |
| se maquiller | to put on makeup | Elle se maquille très légèrement. |
| se préparer un café | to make yourself a coffee | Je me prépare un café avant de partir. |
| prendre le petit déjeuner | to have breakfast | Je prends le petit déjeuner à sept heures et demie. |
| quitter la maison | to leave the house | Il quitte la maison à huit heures. |
| travailler | to work | Je travaille de neuf heures à dix-sept heures. |
| préparer le dîner | to cook dinner | Elle prépare le dîner vers dix-neuf heures. |
| dîner | to have dinner | Nous dînons en famille. |
| se relaxer | to relax | Je me relaxe une heure devant une série. |
| se déshabiller | to get undressed | Il se déshabille et met son pyjama. |
| se coucher | to go to bed | Je me couche vers vingt-trois heures. |
| dormir | to sleep | Je dors environ sept heures. |
How a reflexive verb is conjugated
The pronoun goes between the subject and the verb, and it changes with the subject. Se lever also has an accent change in the stem, which is why it is the useful one to memorise.
| Pronoun | Se lever | Note |
|---|---|---|
| je | je me lève | me becomes m' before a vowel: je m'habille |
| tu | tu te lèves | te becomes t': tu t'habilles |
| il / elle / on | il se lève | se becomes s': elle s'habille |
| nous | nous nous levons | No accent here, the stress falls elsewhere |
| vous | vous vous levez | Also no accent |
| ils / elles | ils se lèvent | The accent is back |
In the past: always être
Every reflexive verb forms its passé composé with être, with no exceptions. Je me suis levé, elle s'est douchée, nous nous sommes couchés. If you find yourself writing j'ai me levé, something has gone wrong.
Because it is être, the participle usually agrees with the subject: il s'est levé, elle s'est levée, ils se sont levés, elles se sont levées. The one case where it does not agree is when a direct object follows, which is exactly what happens with body parts: elle s'est lavée, but elle s'est lavé les mains. No extra e on lavé, because les mains is the direct object.
The meal names, which confuse everyone
In France: le petit déjeuner is breakfast, le déjeuner is lunch, le dîner is dinner. The verbs follow the same pattern, so déjeuner means to have lunch and dîner means to have dinner. Breakfast has no everyday verb of its own in France, which is why the poster says prendre le petit déjeuner rather than petit-déjeuner.
This is worth being careful about, because in Belgium, Switzerland and Quebec the words shift by one meal: there, déjeuner is breakfast, dîner is lunch and souper is dinner. Both systems are correct in their own region, but if you are learning French from France, déjeuner is lunch.
How to practise it in one week
Write out your own day in six sentences using the verbs above, then say it out loud every morning for a week. Six sentences you have built about your own life will outlast sixty you have only read.
Then rewrite the same six in the passé composé, as hier, and you have covered both the tense and the être agreement rules in one exercise. That is the DELF A1 speaking task almost word for word.