Learn French: Je fais souvent le ménage. - I often do the housework.

Je fais souvent le ménage.

I often do the housework.

Breakdown of Je fais souvent le ménage.

the housework / the cleaning

Questions & Answers about Je fais souvent le ménage.

How do you conjugate 'faire' for 'je' in this sentence?

Faire (to do / to make) is a very common irregular verb. For je (I) and tu (you, informal), it becomes fais. The s at the end is silent, so it sounds like 'feh'.

Why is souvent placed after fais?

In English, we put the adverb before the verb ('I often do'). In French, short adverbs like souvent (often) usually go directly after the conjugated verb. Saying Je souvent fais would sound very unnatural to a French speaker.

What exactly does le ménage mean?

Le ménage translates to housework or household chores. The phrase faire le ménage is a fixed expression that means 'to do the housework' or 'to clean the house'.

Why do we use le instead of du here? Doesn't faire usually use du?

You use du or de la with faire when talking about sports or hobbies (like faire du tennis). But for most household chores, French uses the definite article (le, la, les). So it is always faire le ménage, just like faire la vaisselle (to do the dishes).