🪥 Reflexive verbs: je me lave

📖 In short

Some verbs come with an extra pronoun because the subject does the action to themselves: se laver (to wash oneself). We find them in the dictionary with se, and use them a lot to tell about our day: wake up, get up, wash, get dressed…

🔎 The lesson

1 Conjugating se laver

Before a vowel, me, te and se become m', t' and s': je m'habille.

Pronoun	Verb
je	me lave
tu	te laves
il / elle	se lave
nous	nous lavons
vous	vous lavez
ils / elles	se lavent

2 My day

Je me réveille à sept heures.I wake up at seven.
Je me lève.I get up.
Je me lave les mains.I wash my hands.
Je m'habille.I get dressed.
Le soir, je me couche tôt.In the evening I go to bed early.

3 My name is…

The phrase je m'appelle, which we say every day, is a reflexive verb too: s'appeler, “to be called”.

Comment tu t'appelles ?What's your name?
Elle s'appelle Maya.Her name is Maya.

4 Negative

Put ne before the second pronoun and pas after the verb: Je ne me lève pas.

💡 Watch out!

se lever takes an accent in some forms: je me lève, but nous nous levons.

🧩 Test yourself

1 Tu ... laves.

2 Je ... habille.

3 Make it negative: Il se couche.

→ The futur proche ← Commands: Range ta chambre !