Dialogue: À la Sorbonne (A2)

When two French students talk about their studies, they reach for a small toolkit of structures that English speakers rarely have a one-to-one equivalent for. Faire des études de + matière substitutes for "to study"; à la Sorbonne fills the space English handles with "at"; beaucoup de travail requires the bare de; and je dois + infinitive expresses obligation. This A2 dialogue between Léa and Tom shows how all of these come together in a chat about university life.

The dialogue

Léa : Salut Tom ! Tu fais quoi comme études ? Tom : Je fais des études d'histoire, à la Sorbonne. Léa : Ah, sympa. C'est intéressant ? Tom : Très ! J'adore ça. Mais bon, c'est beaucoup de travail. Léa : Tu as des examens bientôt ? Tom : Oui, dans deux semaines. Il faut que je révise sérieusement. Et toi ? Léa : Moi, je suis en droit. J'ai passé un partiel hier, c'était horrible. Tom : Courage ! On boit un café après les cours ?

The conversation is brief but every line introduces a structure you will reuse constantly.

Grammar in action

Tu fais quoi comme études ? — informal question word order

Léa's opener, Tu fais quoi comme études ?, is a textbook example of informal question form in spoken French. Three things happen at once:

• Statement word order: tu fais in the normal subject-verb order. No inversion (fais-tu).
• The question word at the end: quoi sits where the answer will go, not at the front.
• The comme
  • noun construction
  : comme études means "as studies" or "in the way of studies", a typical narrowing phrase.

The same question in three registers:

• Tu fais quoi comme études ? (very informal, the most common in conversation)
• Qu'est-ce que tu fais comme études ? (neutral, everyday)
• Que faites-vous comme études ? (formal, with inversion and vous)

All three are correct. The first is what you actually hear; the third is what textbooks print. Quoi in this position is informal; the formal version moves the question word to the front and uses que.

Faire des études de — the idiom for "to study"

French has a verb étudier ("to study"), but it is used much less than English "to study". For "what do you study?" or "I'm a history major", French defaults to faire des études de + subject.

• Je fais des études d'histoire. — "I study history" / "I'm a history student."
• Elle fait des études de droit. — "She studies law."
• Il fait des études de médecine. — "He's in medical school."

The structure is fixed: faire des études de + bare noun, with no article in front of the subject. De contracts to d' before a vowel: des études d'histoire, des études d'économie. The literal translation "to do studies of" sounds odd in English, but it is the natural French phrasing.

A shorter alternative uses être en + faculty: Je suis en droit ("I'm in law"), Je suis en lettres ("I'm in liberal arts"). This is even more common among students themselves.

The verb étudier itself is reserved for the act of studying — sitting down with books — rather than the program of study. J'étudie pour mon examen means "I'm studying for my exam" (right now, with my notes); Je fais des études d'histoire is your major.

À la Sorbonne — the institution preposition

À la Sorbonne uses à + definite article to mean "at the Sorbonne". The same pattern works for any named institution:

• à l'université — "at the university"
• à l'école — "at school"
• au lycée — "at high school" (au = à
  • le)
• à la fac — "at university" (informal short for faculté)
• à Sciences Po — "at Sciences Po" (no article because the name is treated as a proper-noun shortcut)

The preposition à here serves both location ("at, in") and direction ("to"): Je vais à la Sorbonne demain = "I'm going to the Sorbonne tomorrow"; J'étudie à la Sorbonne = "I study at the Sorbonne". French does not have separate prepositions for location vs. direction with most institutions — à covers both.

A useful contrast: with names of countries, the preposition switches by gender (en France, au Japon) — but with institutions, à is the default.

Beaucoup de travail — quantity expressions with bare de

Tom complains c'est beaucoup de travail ("that's a lot of work"). The expression beaucoup de introduces a quantity. After beaucoup and any other quantifier, French uses the bare preposition de with no article in front of the noun.

The full list of quantity expressions that take bare de:

There is no du, de la, des after these. Native speakers who say beaucoup du travail would mark themselves as foreign immediately.

A second tier of quantity nouns also takes bare de: un kilo de pommes, une bouteille d'eau, un verre de vin, une heure de cours, un peu d'humour.

Dans deux semaines — future time with dans

Tom mentions exams dans deux semaines ("in two weeks"). The preposition dans with a time expression means "in [duration] from now", pointing to a future moment.

This is one of the most reliable transfer errors for English speakers, because English uses "in" for both:

• Dans deux semaines, j'ai mes examens. — "In two weeks, I have my exams." (future point)
• Pendant deux semaines, j'ai révisé. — "For two weeks, I revised." (duration of an event)
• En deux semaines, j'ai tout appris. — "In two weeks, I learned everything." (the time it took)

So three "in"s in English correspond to three different prepositions in French:

• dans
  • duration → "[duration] from now"
• pendant
  • duration → "for the duration of"
• en
  • duration → "within / over the span of"

Il faut que je révise — obligation with il faut que + subjunctive

Tom says Il faut que je révise sérieusement. The structure il faut que + subjunctive expresses necessity or obligation. Réviser in the present subjunctive (je révise) happens to look identical to the present indicative for -er verbs, but the structure is subjunctive grammatically.

The lighter alternative is devoir + infinitive:

• Je dois réviser. — "I have to revise / I must revise."
• Il faut que je révise. — "I need to revise / I must revise."

Both work. Il faut que + subjunctive feels slightly more emphatic and personal. Devoir + infinitive is shorter and more frequent in casual speech.

A third option, falloir with an indirect object pronoun, is even more idiomatic: Il me faut réviser — "I need to revise". This phrasing is older but still alive in writing and elevated speech.

J'ai passé un partiel — passé composé and the verb passer

Léa says J'ai passé un partiel hier. Two notes:

The verb passer with exams. Confusingly, passer un examen in French does not mean "to pass an exam" — it means "to take an exam". To say "to pass" (succeed), French uses réussir un examen or être reçu. The opposite is rater un examen ("to fail"). So:

• J'ai passé l'examen. — "I took the exam."
• J'ai réussi mon examen. — "I passed my exam." (succeeded)
• J'ai raté mon examen. — "I failed my exam."

This is a high-frequency false friend that catches every English speaker.

Un partiel is a midterm exam at university — a partial exam (as opposed to l'examen final). The vocabulary is specifically university French and very common in student talk.

On boit un café ? — on as informal "we"

Tom finishes with On boit un café après les cours ? The pronoun on here means "we" — Tom and Léa together. On is grammatically third-person singular (the verb stays boit, not buvons) but semantically can mean:

• "we" (most common in spoken French) — On va au ciné ? = "Shall we go to the movies?"
• "one / people in general" — On dit que… = "They say that…"
• "someone" — On a sonné à la porte = "Someone rang the doorbell."

Spoken French uses on far more than nous. Nous survives in writing, formal speech, and emphatic contexts (Nous, on aime ça — "As for us, we like it"). For everyday speech, on = we.

Common mistakes

These are the typical pitfalls for English speakers talking about their studies in French.

Étudier is not wrong, but it sounds bookish. Native phrasing is faire des études de + subject for the program of study, étudier for the act of studying.

After every quantity word, the article disappears. Beaucoup du is an instant signal of L2 French.

The false friend bites. Use réussir for "pass", rater for "fail", passer for "take".

Dans points forward in time. To talk about a past duration, use pendant.

Past participle agreement with avoir applies when the direct object precedes the verb (here, les leçons via the relative pronoun que). This is one of the trickiest rules in French and a chronic source of mistakes even for native speakers.

Key takeaways