🎧 Audio by Marie Assel Cambier — native speaker & pro voice artist from France
Level A1-A2 (Beginner & Upper Beginner)
The French Word of the Day is mettre, one of the most useful and versatile verbs in French. Its main meaning is “to put”, but it has many more everyday uses. Today you’ll learn its:
✅ Meaning
✅ Pronunciation
✅ Example sentences
✅ Related Words & Expressions
✅ Related lessons
📘 Mettre meaning
The French verb mettre usually means “to put” or “to place.” It’s also widely used in everyday French to mean “to put on (clothes), to spend (time), to start doing something,” and it appears in many common expressions. For example: Je mets le livre sur le bureau (I put the book on the desk). See examples below.
🎧 Mettre pronunciation
Mettre is pronounced /mɛtʁ/ in IPA. It sounds like meh-tr in English. The final -re ends with the French ʁ (a soft “r” in the throat).
📝 French and English examples
Mettre – to put, to place
1. To put / place
Je mets les clés sur la table.
I put the keys on the table.
2. To put on (clothing)
Il met son blouson avant de sortir.
He puts on his jacket before going out.
3. To spend (time)
J’ai mis deux heures pour finir ce devoir.
I spent two hours finishing this homework.
4. To add / put (in food)
Vous mettez du sel dans la soupe ?
Are you putting salt in the soup?
5. To begin / start (oneself)
Je me mets à travailler sérieusement.
I’m starting to work seriously.
6. To turn on (a device)
Mets la radio, s’il te plaît.
Turn on the radio, please.
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📊 Present tense conjugation
- Je mets — I put / I am putting
- Tu mets — You put / You are putting (singular, informal)
- Il/elle met — He/she puts / He/she is putting
- Nous mettons — We put / We are putting
- Vous mettez — You put / You are putting (plural, formal)
- Ils/elles mettent — They put / They are putting
👉 See the complete mettre conjugation tables here »
🔗 Expressions with mettre
The French use mettre constantly — not just to say “to put,” but in all kinds of expressions. Here are the top 5 most common ones.
1. Mettre la table — to set the table
2. Mettre du temps à — to take/spend time to do something
3. Se mettre d’accord — to come to an agreement
4. Se mettre en colère — to get angry
5. Mettre au courant — to inform / bring someone up to date
🚀 Continue building your French vocabulary!
Now that you’ve mastered mettre, check out my full lesson on se mettre à — one of the most common expressions with mettre, meaning “to start to do something”.
Liked this lesson? 👉 Continue with my French Word of the Day series and learn new words every day.
