Today’s lesson will focus specifically on the feminine noun heure, which means “hour” in French. This word came onto our lessons list as many students have struggled with its pronunciation over the years.
heure
hour
Heure Meaning & Translation
Word origin
According to Wiktionary.org, the French word heure (hour) comes from Old French eure or ure, which in turn come from hora in Latin.
Example sentences
The word heure is most commonly used in telling time. In fact, the word heure must be included every time you say the time. This post on our site covers telling time in French in detail.
Quelle heure est-il ?
What time is it?
In the following example sentence, “in three hours” is transalted to dans trois heures. In this post we cover en vs. dans, two commonly used prepositions for “in”.
Nous partons dans trois heures.
We’re leaving in three hours.
To say “generally”, it’s common for students to mistakenly say généralement when the adverb commonly used in spoken French is en général.
En général, je travaille huit heures par jour.
Generally I work eight hours a day.
In French, the expression for “it’s time” is c’est l’heure. The expression for “come and get it” or “it’s dinner time” is à table (literally “to the table!”).
C’est l’heure de manger, à table !
It’s time eat – come and get it!
This example sentence uses the negation ne…jamais, which means “never”. This page on our site covers the French negation rules in detail. The French expression à l’heure means “on time”.
Je ne suis jamais en retard et j’arrive toujours à l’heure.
I’m never late and I always arrive on time.
In French, the expression a partir de means “starting from”. The verb se lever is reflexive and means “to get up”. This page on our site covers French reflexive verbs in detail. The expression de bonne heure means “early”.
A partir de demain, je me lève de bonne heure !
I’m getting up early starting tomorrow!
Conclusion
Et voilà ! You now know how to use heure in French! Now check out our lesson covering the pronunciation of the tricky eu sound in French! Merci!
