Learn French: D'habitude, je me lève à sept heures. - Usually, I get up at seven o'clock.

D'habitude, je me lève à sept heures.

Usually, I get up at seven o'clock.

Breakdown of D'habitude, je me lève à sept heures.

sept

seven

l'heure

the hour / o'clock (f)

Questions & Answers about D'habitude, je me lève à sept heures.

Why is d'habitude at the very beginning of the sentence?

D'habitude (usually) is an adverb of frequency. You can put adverbs that set the scene for the whole sentence at the very beginning, just like in English ("Usually, I..."). You could also put it after the verb: Je me lève d'habitude à sept heures.

What does the me do in je me lève?

It shows that this is a reflexive verb. The dictionary form is se lever (to get oneself up). In French, for daily routine actions you do to yourself (like waking up, washing, or dressing), you must include a reflexive pronoun. Here, me matches je, so it literally means "I get myself up".

Why is there an accent mark on lève?

The dictionary form of the verb is se lever (with no accent). But when you conjugate it for je, you add a grave accent (è) to make it easier to pronounce. This changes the vowel sound from a soft "uh" to an open "eh".

Can I just say je me lève sept heures instead of using à?

No, you need the à. In French, you always use the preposition à to mean "at" when talking about the time an event happens, exactly like saying "at seven o'clock" in English.