School vocabulary is the first set of words most learners need in the real world, whether you have children starting at a French école, you are sitting in a classroom yourself, or you simply want to talk about what you studied. This poster is the twenty words that fill a French classroom, each with its article, so le and la are learnt at the same time as the word.
Almost everything here is concrete, which makes it some of the easiest vocabulary to fix in your head: put the poster where you can see it and name the objects on your own desk in French. The words that cause trouble are the ones with a second meaning, like le bureau, which is both the desk and the office, and the school names themselves, which do not line up with the English ones at all.
The 20 school words
| French | English | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| l'école | school | Les enfants vont à l'école à huit heures et demie. |
| la professeure, le professeur | teacher | La professeure explique la leçon au tableau. |
| l'élève | pupil, student | L'élève écrit la date dans son cahier. |
| le tableau | board, blackboard | Le professeur écrit la réponse au tableau. |
| le bureau | desk | Je range mes affaires dans mon bureau. |
| le livre | book | Ouvrez votre livre à la page vingt. |
| le cartable | school bag, satchel | Mon cartable est trop lourd. |
| la trousse | pencil case | Il y a trois stylos dans ma trousse. |
| le crayon, le stylo | pencil, pen | J'écris au stylo et je dessine au crayon. |
| le cahier | exercise book, notebook | Je note les devoirs dans mon cahier de textes. |
| la règle | ruler | Trace un trait avec ta règle. |
| la gomme | eraser, rubber | Je peux emprunter ta gomme ? |
| les ciseaux | scissors | Les ciseaux sont sur la table, découpe l'image. |
| le bâton de colle | glue stick | Elle colle la feuille avec un bâton de colle. |
| la peinture | paint, painting | En arts plastiques, on fait de la peinture. |
| le globe | globe | La maîtresse montre la France sur le globe. |
| lever la main | to raise your hand | Lève la main avant de parler. |
| la cloche | bell | La cloche annonce la fin du cours. |
| la cantine | canteen, school cafeteria | Je mange à la cantine tous les midis. |
| les copains, les copines | friends, mates | Je retrouve mes copains dans la cour. |
Talking about a school day
These are the phrases that actually get said in a classroom, by the teacher and by the pupils. Learn them as whole sentences rather than word by word, because that is how you will hear them.
| French | English | Note |
|---|---|---|
| aller à l'école | to go to school | À l'école, no article in English, but French keeps it |
| faire ses devoirs | to do your homework | Les devoirs is always plural |
| apprendre une leçon | to learn a lesson | Apprendre par cœur means to learn by heart |
| passer un examen | to sit an exam | A false friend: passer is to sit it, réussir is to pass it |
| la récréation, la récré | break, playtime | La récré is what everyone actually says |
| la cour de récréation | playground | Often just la cour |
| l'emploi du temps | timetable | Masculine, and un emploi on its own means a job |
| la rentrée | the start of the school year | A date the whole country talks about, early September |
| Ouvrez vos cahiers. | Open your exercise books. | The vous form, how a teacher addresses the class |
| Je peux aller aux toilettes ? | May I go to the toilet? | The single most useful classroom sentence |
Two things worth knowing
The French school names do not map onto the English ones. L'école maternelle is nursery, from three to six, l'école élémentaire (or primaire) runs from six to eleven, le collège from eleven to fifteen, and le lycée from fifteen to eighteen. So a French collège is not a college, and un lycéen is a sixth-former, not a student. In primary school the teacher is le maître or la maîtresse; professeur, usually shortened to le prof or la prof, starts at collège.
La cloche is the bell as an object, the one drawn on the poster. In a real French school you are far more likely to hear la sonnerie, the electric bell, and the sentence people actually say is ça a sonné, it has rung. Same for le bureau: it is the desk you sit at, but also the office you work in, and un bureau de poste is a post office.