Se lever, se laver: reflexive verbs

Je me lève: the verb that comes back to its subject

You have used a reflexive verb since your very first lesson: je m’appelle is literally “I call myself”. A reflexive verb is one whose action comes back to its subject, and French marks it with a second pronoun placed BEFORE the verb: je me lève (I get up – “I raise myself”), tu te lèves, il se lève, nous nous levons, vous vous levez, ils se lèvent. The reflexive pronoun always matches the subject: me goes with je, te with tu, nous with nous, vous with vous, and se with il, elle, ils, elles. The dictionary lists the verb with se: se lever, se coucher, s’habiller. Before a vowel, me, te, se lose their e: je m’habille, tu t’habilles, elle s’habille. And se lever conjugates like acheter: the accent appears in the silent forms – je me lève, ils se lèvent – but not in nous nous levons, vous vous levez.

Le matin, je me réveille à six heures et demie, mais je me lève à sept heures.In the morning I wake up at half past six, but I get up at seven.

From the bed to the bed: se réveiller, se doucher, se coucher

The whole day runs on reflexive verbs, and they come in order. Se réveiller is to wake up, se lever is to get out of bed – two different moments, as the example above shows. Then se laver (to wash), se doucher (to take a shower), s’habiller (to get dressed). In the evening, se reposer (to rest) and, last of all, se coucher (to go to bed). When you wash a part of your body, the part takes the article, not a possessive: je me lave les mains (I wash my hands), elle se brosse les dents (she brushes her teeth) – the pronoun me / se already says whose hands and whose teeth they are. To tell the order, French lines up four words: d’abord (first), ensuite (then), puis (then, next) and enfin (finally). Ensuite and puis mean the same thing; puis is a little shorter and a little more spoken. Tôt (early) and tard (late) say when: je me lève tôt, tu te couches tard.

D’abord, elle se douche, ensuite elle s’habille, puis elle prend son petit-déjeuner.First she showers, then she gets dressed, then she has her breakfast.

Je ne me couche pas tard: negation and the question

The negation wraps the pronoun and the verb together: ne goes before the reflexive pronoun, pas after the verb – je ne me couche pas tard, il ne se lève pas tôt, nous ne nous reposons jamais. Before a vowel, ne becomes n’ and the pronoun elides too: elle ne s’habille pas vite, je n’habite pas ici – but je ne m’habille pas, because the ne stands before m’, not before the vowel. The question is the same as for any verb: let your voice rise – Tu te lèves tôt ? – or open with est-ce que: Est-ce que vous vous couchez tard ? To ask the time, add à quelle heure at the end: Tu te lèves à quelle heure ? One more thing you will need at once: after aller, vouloir, devoir, pouvoir, the reflexive verb stays in the infinitive, but its pronoun still matches the subject – je vais me coucher, tu dois te lever, nous voulons nous reposer.

– Vous vous levez à quelle heure, madame ? – À six heures : je ne me couche jamais après dix heures.– What time do you get up, madam? – At six: I never go to bed after ten.