What Are Parts of the Body Called in French?
In this lesson, we cover the parts of the body in French.
Watch the video as many times as you need, until you feel you can give the French as we go!
Now we can see what we’ve learned. Look at the English words in the list below and see if you can remember the French! Don’t worry if you can’t straight away, you can always take peek at the answer with the ‘Show’ button.
Let’s take them in groups of five.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
How the Word Lists in These Lessons Work
As French words can be either masculine or feminine, we must learn the gender when we learn the word. Therefore, all words in our vocabulary lists will be preceded with le (for masculine) or la (for feminine), the French word for ‘the.’ When the word begins with a vowel, we use un (for masculine) or une (for feminine), the French word for ‘a.’
Nouns and Gender
If nouns and gender are new to you, then you can learn more in this article. The words in the vocabulary list here are all nouns. Nouns in French are either masculine or feminine, regardless of whether they refer to people or not. Find out more.
Irregular Plurals
There are several words in this list that end in ‘-s’, like le bras, le dos, le corps.
Words that end in ‘-s’ stay the same in the plural: les bras (the arms), les dos (the backs), les corps (the bodies). These are called invariable.
The same is true of os (bone). However, while the pronunciation usually stays the same, in the case of os the ‘s’ is bizarrely pronounced in the singular, but becomes silent in the plural. So the plural for bones is pronounced like the English expression ‘oh!’ with rounded lips:
un os [un oss] (a bone) > les os [les oh] (the bones).
Meanwhile, words that end in ‘-ou’ add an ‘x’ in the plural:
un genou (a knee) > les genoux (the knees)
If you want more information on making plurals in French, our article Nouns and Making Plurals in French can guide you more. Don’t worry though, you can also skip this for now, as we’ll return to this topic again.
Aspirated ‘h’
The word for hip is une hanche or la hanche. It is never l’hanche. This is because the ‘h’ is aspirated, which means it is very slightly spoken. Therefore, it behaves like a consonant and not a vowel.
Sentence Builder: Saying What’s Wrong
Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?
What’s wrong?
| J’ai mal… | au bras I have arm ache au dos I have a back ache à la cheville My ankle aches à la tête I have a headache aux genoux My knees ache |
Notice that the masculine words all use the word ‘au,’ which is a contraction of à le.
Similarly, in the plural, à les becomes aux.
The French expression means, “I have pain at…”
Quiz – Fill in the Blanks
Can you fill in the blanks to complete the words we learned?
Dead or Alive? The French Word corps
The French word for body comes from the Latin, corpus.
Through Norman French, it gave us the English word ‘corpse,’ which originally would have also meant a body that is either dead or alive.
