Travel and Tourism: Vocabulary and Places

Going, staying, coming back

Almost everything you will say about a journey in French runs through three verbs. Partir, to leave. Rester, to stay. Revenir, to come back. Add arriver, to arrive, and you can describe most of a holiday before you have learned a single word for a place. That is why this module starts with the verbs rather than with a vocabulary list. And there is a reason they are worth learning together, which is the grammar point this whole topic turns on. Partir, arriver and revenir all take être in the perfect tense rather than avoir, and that matters because a verb using être has to agree with the person doing it. So a boy writes *je suis parti* and a girl writes *je suis partie*, with an extra e. Nothing about the meaning changes; the ending does. This is where marks on travel questions are most often lost, because students who have learned the vocabulary write the tense with avoir out of habit and lose the accuracy marks. So as you work through the vocabulary in this module, keep asking the same question about every verb: does this one take avoir or être, and if it takes être, who is doing it?

French words for travelling

Six words from the topic list. Two of them do not mean what an English speaker expects, and those two are the ones examiners like.

Match the word to the place

A square, not a place

A French text mentions la place. What does it mean?

• The square, as in a town square
• A place, in the general sense of somewhere
• A country
• A plate

Two verbs that take être

Here is the rule that decides the accuracy marks on this topic. Most French verbs form the perfect tense with avoir, but a small group uses être instead, and the travel verbs are the heart of that group: partir, arriver, rester and revenir all take être. When a verb takes être, the past participle agrees with the person doing it. That means the ending changes: a masculine speaker writes je suis parti, and a feminine speaker writes je suis partie. For a plural subject an s is added as well. So the same journey is described with a slightly different spelling depending on who made it, which is unusual for an English speaker and easy to forget under pressure. Learn one full sentence as a frame and you have a model for the whole topic: je suis parti en France et je suis revenu deux semaines plus tard. That single sentence contains both the auxiliary and the pattern, and you can swap the destination and the time for any other. ⚠️ The commonest error is not getting the agreement wrong; it is using avoir at all. Writing *j'ai parti* is a straightforward mistake that costs accuracy marks, and it happens because avoir is what the hand is used to writing. So check the auxiliary first, and the ending second.

Which two forms are right

Select the TWO correct French sentences.

• Je suis parti en France.
• Elle est restée dans la ville.
• Elle a parti en France.
• Je suis revenus de la région.

The holiday in the past

Complete the account. Je _____ parti en France avec ma famille. Nous avons visité une _____ dans le sud, et nous sommes restés dans un petit village très _____. La _____ sur les montagnes était magnifique. Deux semaines plus tard, je suis _____ en Angleterre.

In a country, in a town

Which little word goes before a place name. The rule is short, and the two mountain ranges your specification names work differently again.

Say where you went

Rebuild the frame sentence from the card, choosing the right auxiliary and ending.

Find the travel words

Five words from this topic are hidden in the grid. They may run across, down or diagonally, forwards or backwards.

Build the longer sentence

Put these parts in order to make a correct French sentence about a journey.

• Je suis parti
• en France
• avec ma famille
• et nous sommes restés
• dans les Alpes
• pendant deux semaines

Spot the wrong auxiliary

Four French sentences about a journey. Select the ONE that uses the wrong auxiliary verb.

• Je suis parti en France au mois de juillet.
• Elle a visité une ville dans le sud.
• Nous avons resté dans un petit village.
• Ils sont revenus deux semaines plus tard.

A short answer, marked out

A writing task asks you to describe a holiday in about forty words. Here is an answer with the marking shown, so you can see where the accuracy marks actually sit. The answer: *Je suis parti en France avec ma famille. Nous sommes restés dans un petit village dans les Alpes. La vue sur les montagnes était magnifique et le village était très propre. Nous sommes revenus deux semaines plus tard.* What earns the marks. The auxiliary is right three times: parti, restés and revenus all use être, which is the thing being tested. The agreement is right too: restés and revenus take the s because nous is plural, while parti stays singular because je is one person. The preposition is right twice: en France for a feminine country and dans les Alpes for a plural range. And the vocabulary is used accurately, including propre meaning clean rather than own. What a weaker version would look like. *J'ai parti* would lose the auxiliary mark straight away. *Nous sommes resté* would keep the auxiliary but lose the agreement. *À France* would lose the preposition. Notice how few things are actually being checked. Auxiliary, agreement, preposition, and whether the words mean what you think. If you check those four before you hand the paper in, you will recover most of the marks students lose on this topic.

Getting it right on the day

You are writing about a journey in the exam. Work through the decisions.

• You want to write that you left. Which auxiliary?
• You are writing as a girl and the verb takes être. What changes?
• You want to say you stayed in the Pyrenees. Which preposition?
• You have two minutes left to check your work. What do you check first?

Write about a journey

Write about a holiday or journey in French, in about sixty words. Use the perfect tense and take care with the auxiliary and the agreement.

• Say where you went, using partir and the right preposition
• Say who you went with
• Say where you stayed, using rester in the perfect
• Describe the place using at least two words from this topic
• Say when you came back, using revenir in the perfect
• Check that every past verb uses the right auxiliary
• Check that every participle agrees with the person doing it