The week, the routine and how often

Lundi or le lundi: one Monday or every Monday

French marks a habit with one small word: the article. Lundi on its own names ONE Monday, the nearest one – Lundi, ma sœur arrive de Lyon. Put le in front and the same day becomes a rule of your life: le lundi means every Monday, week after week. The parts of the day work exactly the same way: ce matin is this morning, le matin is “in the mornings, as a rule”. Two other ways to say a habit sit next to them: tous les jours (every day, with a plural noun after tous les) and chaque jour (each day, with a SINGULAR noun after chaque). And toute la journée is a third thing again – not how often, but how long: all day, from morning to evening.

Le mercredi, les enfants ne vont pas à l’école ; mercredi, ils vont chez leur grand-mère.On Wednesdays the children do not go to school; this Wednesday they are going to their grandmother’s.

Toujours, souvent, quelquefois, rarement, jamais: how often

A word of frequency stands right AFTER the conjugated verb, not before it: je fais souvent la cuisine, il se lève toujours tôt. Only the longer ones – d’habitude, de temps en temps, quelquefois – like to open the sentence instead: D’habitude, je fais mes devoirs le soir. The ladder goes from always to never: toujours, d’habitude, souvent, quelquefois (the twin of parfois), de temps en temps, rarement, jamais. The last one is special: it replaces pas inside the negation – je ne fais jamais la lessive le dimanche, never ne fais pas jamais. And when you want a number instead of a word, French counts with fois: une fois par jour, deux fois par semaine, trois fois par mois.

D’habitude, je me couche à onze heures, mais le vendredi, je ne me couche jamais avant minuit.I usually go to bed at eleven, but on Fridays I never go to bed before midnight.

De huit heures à midi: the shape of the day

To frame a stretch of time French uses the pair de… à…: je travaille de huit heures à midi, la piscine est ouverte de sept heures à dix heures. For a length without a starting point there is pendant: pendant une heure, pendant deux jours. To place something before or after another moment, avant and après take a noun – avant le dîner, après l’école – and they can also stand alone as adverbs: Après, je me repose. Two nouns organise all of this. La journée is the day seen as a length (the whole of it, from morning to evening), while le jour is the day as a unit you count. And l’emploi du temps is the printed shape of your week: school timetable, work schedule, the plan on the fridge. What you actually do inside it is la routine.

Ma journée est simple : je travaille de neuf heures à cinq heures, et après, je fais du sport pendant une heure.My day is simple: I work from nine to five, and afterwards I do sport for an hour.

D’abord, ensuite, après, enfin: telling a routine in order

You met d’abord, ensuite, puis, enfin in the first lesson of the unit; here they do a job. A routine told without them is a list of verbs; told with them it becomes a story your partner can follow. D’abord opens, ensuite and puis add a step, après adds a step too but also looks back at the previous one, enfin closes. Notice that après has two lives: with a noun it is a preposition (après le déjeuner) and alone, followed by a comma, it is an adverb (Après, je range la cuisine). A useful habit when you speak: name the moment first (Le matin), then the order (d’abord), then the verb. That order sounds French.

– Raconte ta routine du soir. – D’abord, je fais les courses ; ensuite, nous dînons ; après, je range la cuisine.– Tell me your evening routine. – First I do the shopping; then we have dinner; afterwards I tidy the kitchen.