Housework is the vocabulary you need first if you live in France, share a flat with French speakers or host a family. It is also the vocabulary that comes up in every A1 and A2 speaking exam, because an examiner can ask anyone what they did at home last weekend. Twenty verbs cover almost all of it, and you can practise them while you do the thing.
The pattern to learn before the words themselves is faire plus a definite article. French does not say I clean the dishes, it says je fais la vaisselle, and the same construction carries the laundry, the shopping, the bed and the housework itself. Learn those as whole blocks and the rest of this page is ordinary verbs.
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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 chores
| French | English | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| balayer | to sweep | Je balaie la cuisine tous les soirs. |
| passer l’aspirateur | to vacuum | Je passe l’aspirateur dans le salon le samedi. |
| laver le sol | to mop the floor | Elle lave le sol à la serpillière. |
| dépoussiérer | to dust | Je dépoussière les étagères une fois par semaine. |
| nettoyer les vitres | to clean the windows | On nettoie les vitres au printemps. |
| nettoyer la table | to wipe the table | Nettoie la table après le repas. |
| nettoyer la cuisine | to clean the kitchen | Je nettoie la cuisine quand j’ai fini de cuisiner. |
| nettoyer la salle de bain | to clean the bathroom | Il nettoie la salle de bain le dimanche. |
| nettoyer les toilettes | to clean the toilet | Personne n’aime nettoyer les toilettes. |
| sortir la poubelle | to take out the bin | N’oublie pas de sortir la poubelle ce soir. |
| ranger | to tidy up, to put away | Range ta chambre avant de sortir. |
| faire le lit | to make the bed | Je fais mon lit tous les matins. |
| faire la lessive | to do the laundry | Je fais une lessive deux fois par semaine. |
| laver à la main | to wash by hand | Ce pull se lave à la main, pas en machine. |
| étendre le linge | to hang the laundry out | J’étends le linge sur le balcon. |
| plier le linge | to fold the laundry | Je plie le linge devant la télé. |
| repasser | to iron | Je déteste repasser les chemises. |
| faire la vaisselle | to do the dishes | C’est ton tour de faire la vaisselle. |
| cuisiner | to cook | Je cuisine presque tous les soirs. |
| faire les courses | to do the shopping | On fait les courses le samedi matin. |
The cleaning kit
The objects the verbs are done with, each with its article, because this is a corner of the language where the gender is almost never guessable.
| French | English | Note |
|---|---|---|
| le balai | broom | Donner un coup de balai is to give the place a quick sweep |
| la pelle | dustpan | Une pelle is also a spade, so la pelle et la balayette for the indoor pair |
| l’aspirateur (m.) | vacuum cleaner | Always passer l’aspirateur, never faire l’aspirateur |
| la serpillière | mop, floor cloth | La wassingue in the north, la panosse around Lyon and in Switzerland |
| le seau | bucket | Plural seaux, and the x is silent |
| l’éponge (f.) | sponge | Passer un coup d’éponge is to wipe something down |
| le chiffon | cloth, duster | Un chiffon à poussière is the dusting one |
| les gants (m.) de ménage | rubber gloves | Sold as gants de ménage, not gants de nettoyage |
| le produit d’entretien | cleaning product | The whole aisle is le rayon entretien |
| l’eau de Javel (f.) | bleach | Named after Javel, a village swallowed by Paris |
| la poubelle | bin, trash can | And le sac-poubelle is the bin bag |
| le lave-vaisselle | dishwasher | Mettre au lave-vaisselle, vider le lave-vaisselle |
| le liquide vaisselle | washing-up liquid | No hyphen here, unlike le lave-vaisselle |
| la machine à laver | washing machine | Le lave-linge on the box, la machine in the kitchen |
| la lessive | laundry detergent | Also the wash itself: faire une lessive |
| le sèche-linge | tumble dryer | Far less common in French homes than l’étendoir |
| l’étendoir (m.) | clothes airer | Also called un séchoir à linge |
| la pince à linge | clothes peg | What holds the washing on the line |
| le fer à repasser | iron | And la planche à repasser is the ironing board |
The faire expressions
Housework is where faire does most of its work. These are fixed: the article cannot be dropped and no other verb replaces faire.
| French | English | Note |
|---|---|---|
| faire le ménage | to do the housework | The umbrella term for all of it |
| faire les poussières | to do the dusting | Plural, and a common alternative to dépoussiérer |
| faire sa chambre | to do one’s room | Means tidying it, not cleaning it from top to bottom |
| faire la vaisselle | to do the dishes | La vaisselle is both the dishes and the crockery |
| faire la lessive | to do the laundry | Faire une lessive is one load in the machine |
| faire les courses | to do the food shopping | Faire du shopping is clothes, and a different activity |
| mettre la table | to lay the table | Mettre le couvert is the slightly more formal version |
| débarrasser la table | to clear the table | Often just débarrasser on its own |
| vider le lave-vaisselle | to empty the dishwasher | The chore nobody volunteers for |
| changer les draps | to change the sheets | Un drap-housse is the fitted sheet |
| trier les déchets | to sort the recycling | Le tri sélectif is the system itself |
| arroser les plantes | to water the plants | Un arrosoir is the watering can |
Three traps worth reading twice
Ranger, nettoyer and laver are not interchangeable, and French keeps them further apart than English does. Ranger is about order: you put things back where they belong, which is why a parent says range ta chambre and not nettoie ta chambre. Nettoyer is about dirt, with or without water. Laver needs water, so you lave le sol with a bucket but you nettoie les vitres with a spray. Say nettoie ta chambre to a French teenager and you have asked for something much bigger than you meant.
La lessive means three things at once and context does all the work. It is the detergent you buy (j’ai acheté de la lessive), the load you put on (je fais une lessive), and in older usage the washing itself. The machine is la machine à laver in speech and le lave-linge on the label. One thing it never means is the laundry you are carrying around: that is le linge, which covers the dirty pile, the clean pile and the household linen alike.
Then there is le ménage itself. Faire le ménage is the housework, but un ménage is also a household, which is why French statistics count les ménages français the way English counts households, and why un jeune ménage is a young couple. The idiom faire bon ménage avec quelque chose means to go well together: le vin rouge et le poisson ne font pas bon ménage. Same word, no cleaning involved.