In today’s lesson we will look at one of the most beautiful words in the French langauge: le printemps, which translates to “spring”, or “springtime”. Let’s jump right into the examples!
le printemps
spring
Printemps – spring, springtime in French
Word origin
The modern French masculine noun printemps (spring, springtime) comes from Old French prin temps, meaning “first time”. Prin in turn comes from the Latin primus (that which comes first) and temps comes from the Latin tempus (time, duration, time period).
Pronunciation
The pronunciation of printemps is: [pʀɛ̃-tɑ̃].
Example sentences
For this first sentence I could have also used the adjective favori for “favorite”. Hence, in the feminine form ma saison favorite.
Le printemps est ma saison préférée.
Spring is my favorite season.
This second sentence uses the pronoun on, which can translate to “one”, “we”, “you” and people in general.
Le printemps commence. On voit les bourgeons sur les arbres.
Springtime is starting. You can see the buds on the trees.
This sentence uses a calandar date.
Le mardi 19 mars est le premier jour du printemps.
Tuesday, March 19 is the first day of spring.
In French, plein de is synonomous for beaucoup de, which means “a lot of”.
Au printemps, on voit plein de fleurs.
You can see lots of flowers in springtime.
For this last sentence, the expression faire le ménage means “to do housework”. Le ménage de printemps means “spring cleaning”. This sentence is in the futur proche or near future tense.
Demain je vais faire le ménage de printemps.
I’m going to do spring cleaning tomorrow.
Word of the Day Lessons | Lessons by David Issokson
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