Last week’s post got me thinking about French building vocabulary. The buildings people live in, the lives they live there. This week let’s look at the language of building.

French Building Vocabulary

Les immeubles¹The French word for furniture is les meubles. Les meubles historically referred to people’s property that could be moved, les immeubles referred to property that could not be moved. Both words share a root with the word movable.

A la maison

La salle de bain ou les toilettes?

The first time I went out with friends as a young man in Paris, still learning French, I remember asking “Où est la salle de bain?” when I needed to go to the restroom. It was that night that I learned that the word I had learned in high schools French as the bathroom was literally the room where the bathtub is! And while many salles de bain have toilets in them, the correct term to use when you’re out at a restaurant – or even at someone’s house – looking for the facilities, the right thing to ask is “Où sont les toilettes?”²Note: It’s considered more polite in French to ask for les toilettes (plural) instead of la toilette (singular).

Les activités à la maison

French Culture – Architectural Oddities

French Vocabulary: Housing

Taking A Shower In French

• 1
  The French word for furniture is les meubles. Les meubles historically referred to people’s property that could be moved, les immeubles referred to property that could not be moved. Both words share a root with the word movable.
• 2
  Note: It’s considered more polite in French to ask for les toilettes (plural) instead of la toilette (singular).
• 3
  What does one do in the kitchen?
• 4
  on peut aussi dire cuisiner ou faire la cuisine
• 5
  One prepares meals in the kitchen.
• 6
  One eats.
• 7
  One washes dishes.
• 8
  One watches television, one listens to music, and one plays board games/party games.
• 9
  One sleeps in the bathroom.
• 10
  businesses, French and foreign
• 11
  towers
• 12
  skyscrapers; lit. sky scratchers