French: Clothes and accessories

If you want to talk about the clothes that are wearing, a really useful verb is porter (to wear). If you want to say ‘I am wearing’ something, you say Je porte.

You can then add a noun afterwards to explain what clothes you are wearing.

Je porte un manteau – I am wearing a coat

Je porte un pull – I am wearing a jumper

Did you know?

The ending of the verb changes, depending on which person or thing is doing the action. For the verb porter, the ending for je (I), elle (she) and il (he) is e.

Notice that the verb ending used with tu (you) is es. Listen to the sound of the verbs below. They all sound the same except for porter.

If you want to say what someone else is wearing, you say:

Elle porte – She is wearing

Elle porte une jupe – She is wearing a skirt

Il porte – He is wearing

Il porte une écharpe – He is wearing a scarf

To ask what someone else is wearing, you say Qu'est-ce que tu portes ? – What are you wearing?

Have a look at the French vocabulary for clothes and see how much you can remember.

Remember that to say ‘a’, you use un for masculine singular nouns and une for feminine singular nouns.

For plural nouns, you can say des (some) in French.

Remember, if the noun is plural, it will often end in s.

Here are some examples of plural nouns in French for clothes:

Did you know?

In French, ‘trousers’ are singular – un pantalon.

Here are some other items of clothing that are plural in English but singular in French:

Did you know?

The verb you use to say ‘to wear’ porter also means ‘to carry’.

So you can say:

Je porte un pull – I wear a jumper

Je porte un parapluie – I carry an umbrella

Below are some important French sounds that you have heard in this topic. Try practising them yourself out loud.

ch

In French, the letters ch make the same sound as the letters sh do in English.

des chaussures – some shoes

How many other French words in this article can you spot that contain this sound?

om, on

In French, the letters on and om make a nasal sound. Put your mouth in the position to say o as in orange, then allow the air to come down your nose. This is a nasal sound.

un pantalon – trousers

q and qu

The word for ‘cap’ is casquette. The sound for the letters qu in the middle of this word make the same sound as c or k in English.

une casquette – a cap

Remember that the e on the end of the word is silent.