🎧 Audio by Marie Assel Cambier — native speaker & pro voice artist from France
Level A1 (Beginner)
The French Word of the Day is travailler (to work). It’s one of the most common verbs in the language and appears everywhere — at school, on the job, and in daily conversations. In this lesson, you’ll discover its:
✅ Meaning
✅ Pronunciation
✅ Example sentences
✅ Related Words & Expressions
✅ Related lessons
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📘 Travailler meaning
Travailler means “to work” in French. It’s used not only for professional jobs but also for studying, practicing, or putting effort into something. For example, you can travailler à l’école (work at school), travailler son piano (practice the piano), or travailler dur (work hard).
🎧 Travailler pronunciation
Travailler is pronounced /tʁavaje/, like trah-vah-yay. The French r is guttural, and the -er ending sounds like -yay.
📝 French and English examples
Travailler – to work
Je travaille tous les jours sauf le dimanche.
I work every day except Sunday.
Tu travailles trop; tu as besoin de te reposer.
You work too much, you need to rest.
On travaille ensemble sur un projet important.
We’re working together on an important project.
Il a travaillé à Paris pendant trois ans.
He worked in Paris for three years.
Elle va travailler à la maison demain.
She’s going to work from home tomorrow.
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📊 Present tense conjugation
Travailler is a regular -er verb, so it follows the same conjugation pattern of parler in the present tense.
- Je travaille — I work / I am working
- Tu travailles — You work / You are working (singular, informal)
- Il/elle travaille — He/she works / He/she is working
- Nous travaillons — We work / We are working
- Vous travaillez — You work / You are working (plural, formal)
- Ils/elles travaillent — They work / They are working
👉 See the complete travailler conjugation tables here »
🔗 Related words and expressions
- le travail — work, job
- un travailleur / une travailleuse — worker
- travailler dur — to work hard
- travailler à mi-temps / à plein temps — to work part-time / full-time
- travailler à distance — to work remotely
- travailler sur un projet — to work on a project
- travailler comme un fou / une folle — to work like crazy
- travailler pour le roi de Prusse — to work for nothing
- travailler d’arrache-pied — to work tirelessly, flat out
- ça ne marche pas — it doesn’t work (for objects, not people)
🚀 Continue building your French vocabulary!
Now that you’ve mastered travailler, take a look at my lesson on the slang verb bosser, which also means “to work”:
👉 Learn bosser here »
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