How to Describe Yourself in French

For anyone planning to engage in conversations in French, it is a good idea to learn how to describe yourself in French. Each and every time that you meet someone new, you will, most likely, have to describe yourself at least a little bit. Whether the person with whom you are speaking is interested in your nationality, what you do for work, or your personal preferences, these all fall under the umbrella of describing yourself and all have a similar vocabulary and some key words that come back again and again.

J'aime jouer de la guitare.

In order to build sentences that describe you, you will need to know how to say 'I', you will need some common verbs, and you will need some phrases (mostly adjectives) that describe you.

The French translation for 'I' is je, which becomes a little complicated if the word following je begins with a vowel. If the next word begins with a vowel, the 'e' of je is deleted, and an apostrophe goes in its place. For example, to say that you were going somewhere, you need the past tense of aller: allais; because it starts with a vowel, the correct way to write 'I was going' is: j'allais.

In order to start describing yourself, you will need the two most common verbs in the French language: être and avoir. These two verbs mean, respectively, 'to be' and 'to have', and will be used often in phrases to describe yourself. In addition to knowing that these are the verbs, you need to know the conjugations that go with these verbs in the first person:

• je suis (I am)
• j'ai (I have)

Some additional verbs that are often used are venir (to come: je viens des Etats-Unis—I am from America), travailler (to work: je travaille dans une banque—I work for a bank); aimer (to love: j'aime jouer au football—I love to play soccer). With just five verbs you can describe yourself in a pretty thorough manner!

If you want to know how to describe yourself in French by contrasting what you were like as a child as compared to what you are like as an adult, you'll also need to know the past tenses of these verbs:

• j'étais (I was): Quand j'étais plus jeune, je jouais toujours au tennis (When I was younger, I always played tennis.)
• j'avais (I had): J'avais un chien qui s'appellait Benny (I had a dog named Benny.)
• je travaillais (I was working): Lorsque je travaillais au supermarché je gagnais surtout beaucoup d'argent le dimanche. (When I worked at the supermarket I earned the most money on Sundays.)
• j'aimais (I loved): J'aimais lire quand j'étais petit (I loved to read when I was younger.)

The final element necessary when describing yourself is the actual description, which is often an adjective, or a verb phrase. One of the most important things to remember about using adjectives with yourself is that they have to agree in gender with your own gender. For example, if you want to say that you are Canadian, you have to make the adjective 'Canadian' agree with your own gender: if you are male, you would say je suis canadien; if you are female, the adjective is both pronounced, and spelled, differently: je suis canadienne.

Check out this list of basic describing adjectives for some general descriptions words. Beyond these, use a dictionary to look up some adjectives that you would like to use to describe yourself. While translating word-for-word seldom works, if you are able to build the personal pronoun and verb part of the sentence, in order to add an adjective you only have to look up the adjective itself and make sure it agrees with you in gender.

These three simple elements: 'I' + verb + description are a great formula for creating countless sentences with which you can describe yourself, what you like and don't like, and what you do.

• Romantic French Words
• French Greeting Words
• French Spring Words
• French Verb Quiz: To Leave
• Famous French Sayings Quiz

• French Love Quotes
• French Love Phrases
• How to Say Goodbye in French
• Funny French Phrases
• Popular French Sayings