👉 See also: Souvenir (memory, souvenir) — Word of the Day lesson »
Level A2 (Upper Beginner)
The French Word of the Day is se souvenir, meaning “to remember” or “to recall.” Keep reading to discover its full meaning and how to use it example sentences.
Meaning
Pronunciation with IPA
Example sentences
Conjugation
Related lessons
Meaning
Se souvenir means “to remember” or “to recall” in French. It’s a reflexive verb and is often followed by de when talking about remembering something specific. For example:
- Je me souviens de ce jour. – I remember that day.
- Elle se souvient de son enfance. – She remembers her childhood.
The verb se souvenir is always reflexive. This means that it cannot be used in the non-reflexive form. Hence, je souviens is wrong for “I remember”. You must say je me souviens. Since it’s followed by de, you must use the pronoun en to express “it”. Hence, je m’en souviens (I remember it”).
Pronunciation
Example sentences
Je me souviens de presque tous mes profs du lycée.
I remember almost al of my high school teachers.
Je me souviens de mon voyage en France.
I remember my trip to France.
Se rappeler – synonym
The reflexive verb se rappeler is a synonym for se souvenir and also means “to remember” or “to recall”. This verb is not followed by de. Hence, je me rappelle de mon voyage (I remember my trip) would be wrong. Se rappeler is slightly less formal than se souvenir.
Je me rappelle mon voyage en Espagne.
I remember my trip to Spain.
The English word souvenir as in an object you buy on a trip, comes from French: un souvenir!
Martine a achété plusieurs souvenirs quand elle est allée au Mexique.
Martine purchased several souvenirs when she went to Mexico.
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Conjugation
The verb se souvenir follows the same conjugation pattern as the verb venir (to come) with the prefix sou-.
Je me souviens I remember
Tu te souviens You remember (singular, informal)
Il, elle se souvient He, she remembers
Nous nous souvenons We remember
Vous vous souvenez You remember (plural, formal)
Ils, elles se souviennent They remember
Related expressions
- avoir un trou de mémoire – to have a memory lapse
- se rafraîchir la mémoire – to refresh one’s memory
- perdre la mémoire – to lose one’s memory
- faire remonter des souvenirs – to bring back memories
Related lessons and words
- penser à to think about
- oublier to forget
- se remémorer to recall, to bring back to mind
- évoquer to evoke, to bring up a memory
- retrouver la mémoire to recover one’s memory
- remarquer to notice
- la mémoire memory
