French time vocabulary
These are the French words about time that come up most often in real speech, ranked by how often they appear in film and TV subtitles. Start with the first ones, such as soir (evening), passé (past), jour (day), because you will run into them on almost any page about the subject, and the rarer words make more sense once those are familiar.
Words in this list: 30
| # | Word | Pronunciation | Translation | Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | soir | /swaʁ/ | evening | A1 |
| 2 | passé | /pa.se/ | past | A1 |
| 3 | jour | /ʒuʁ/ | day | A1 |
| 4 | nuit | /nɥi/ | night | A1 |
| 5 | moment | /mɔ.mɑ̃/ | moment | A1 |
| 6 | heure | /œʁ/ | hour | A1 |
| 7 | histoire | /is.twaʁ/ | history | A1 |
| 8 | mois | /mwa/ | month | A1 |
| 9 | matin | /ma.tɛ̃/ | morning | A1 |
| 10 | semaine | /sə.mɛn/ | week | A1 |
| 11 | minute | /mi.nyt/ | minute | A2 |
| 12 | instant | /ɛ̃s.tɑ̃/ | instant | A2 |
| 13 | retard | /ʁə.taʁ/ | delay | A2 |
| 14 | an | /ɑ̃/ | year | A2 |
| 15 | scène | /sɛn/ | stage | A2 |
| 16 | anniversaire | /a.ni.vɛʁ.sɛʁ/ | birthday | A2 |
| 17 | présent | /pʁe.zɑ̃/ | present | A2 |
| 18 | tombe | /tɔ̃b/ | grave | A2 |
| 19 | avenir | /av.niʁ/ | future | A2 |
| 20 | deuxième | /dø.zjɛm/ | second | A2 |
| 21 | vacances | /va.kɑ̃s/ | holiday | A2 |
| 22 | après-midi | /a.pʁɛ.mi.di/ | afternoon | A2 |
| 23 | week-end | /wi.kɛnd/ | weekend | B1 |
| 24 | date | /dat/ | date | B1 |
| 25 | pause | /poz/ | pause | B1 |
| 26 | vitesse | /vi.tɛs/ | speed | B1 |
| 27 | vendredi | /vɑ̃.dʁə.di/ | friday | B1 |
| 28 | saison | /sɛ.zɔ̃/ | season | B1 |
| 29 | samedi | /sam.di/ | saturday | B1 |
| 30 | naissance | /nɛ.sɑ̃s/ | birth | B1 |
How to make these words stick
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Sources: translations and pronunciation from Wiktionary (wikdict, CC BY-SA 3.0) and ipa-dict (MIT), frequency from OpenSubtitles (FrequencyWords).