Lesson 9 — Appartement à louer

By the end of this lesson, you can:

• Read and describe a real-estate ad for housing
• Name the rooms of a flat (kitchen, living room, bathroom…)
• Count floors the French way (rez-de-chaussée, 1^er, 2^e, 3^e…)
• Use the plural stressed pronouns (nous, vous, eux, elles)
• Use the preposition à to express purpose, price, location, time
• Ask questions with où ("where")

📝 Notes

① un appartement à louer — the structure à + infinitive expresses purpose: un travail à faire "work to do", une maison à vendre "a house for sale". Same idea as English "to-do list" or "for sale".

② au coin de la rue — useful location phrases: au coin de "at the corner of", au bout de "at the end of", en face de "across from / opposite".

③ au troisième étage — careful, the French floor system is different from the US system. See the "French floors" section below.

④ au bout du couloir = "at the end of the hallway". Il habite au bout de la rue "He lives at the end of the street".

⑤ 550 € / mois — read aloud "cinq cent cinquante euros par mois". par = "per". par jour (per day), par semaine (per week), par mois, par an.

⑥ Decimal note: in French, the decimal mark is a comma (68,5 m²) and the thousands separator is a space (1 200 €) — opposite of US/UK conventions.

⚠️ "Two-room flat" in French: a deux-pièces in a French ad means 2 main rooms = 1 bedroom + 1 living room. The kitchen, bathroom and toilet are not counted. So a 2 pièces is roughly a US/UK "1-bedroom flat".

⚠️ Big trap for English speakers: in France (as in the UK and most of Europe), the rez-de-chaussée = the ground floor — and it is not the 1^er étage! Counting starts with the floor just above the ground floor.

1. Stressed pronouns (2) — plural nous, vous, eux, elles

Quick reminder of the singular forms (Lesson 6) plus the plural ones:

• Ma mère habite avec nous. "My mother lives with us."
• Vous travaillez chez vous ? "Do you work from home / at your place?"
• Pierre et Paul? Je travaille avec eux. "Pierre and Paul? I work with them."
• Anne et Marie? Je vais chez elles ce soir. "Anne and Marie? I'm going to their place tonight."

2. The preposition à A Swiss-army-knife preposition

The little word à is used everywhere. It maps onto several different English prepositions depending on context:

3. The question word où "where"

où (with the grave accent) asks about a place. Don't confuse it with ou (no accent) = "or".

• Où est mon sac ? "Where is my bag?" — Dans la chambre.
• Où est-ce que vous habitez ? "Where do you live?" — À Paris.
• Vous habitez où ? (informal, spoken)
• D'où venez-vous ? "Where are you from?" — Je viens de Chine.