français · A2 · vocabulary · 4 minutes
Household chores
Remember housework as natural action-and-object combinations.
Understand the choice
A chore list combines general action verbs with fixed noun phrases. The object determines whether laver means wash, whether ranger means put away, and whether faire names laundry, dishes, or cleaning.
Core rule: Household chores are best learned as collocations: faire une lessive, sortir la poubelle, faire la vaisselle, and passer l’aspirateur.
Notice it in context
Aujourd’hui, je nettoie la salle de bains, je fais une lessive et je sors la poubelle.
Today, I clean the bathroom, do a load of laundry, and take out the rubbish.
Three parallel je forms create a checklist; faire une lessive means do one load of laundry.
Mon colocataire fait la vaisselle.
My flatmate does the dishes.
Faire la vaisselle is the fixed phrase for washing dishes.
Tu peux balayer la cuisine ?
Can you sweep the kitchen?
Pouvoir softens the request; balayer stays infinitive.
What to remember
- Lessive can mean laundry, a load, or laundry detergent.
- Lave-vaisselle is normally invariable in the plural: des lave-vaisselle.
Common trap: Do not translate “take out the rubbish” as prendre dehors. Use sortir la poubelle or descendre les poubelles in an apartment building.