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Elle se lève et s'assied.

Elle se lève et s'assied.
She gets up and sits down.
From Lesson 60:Daily routine verbs (se lever, s'habiller)·French

Breakdown of Elle se lève et s'assied.

elle
she
se lever
to get up
s'asseoir
to sit down

Questions & Answers about Elle se lève et s'assied.

Why are there extra words like se and s' when the English translation just says gets up and sits down?
In French, verbs for daily routines or actions you do to your own body are often reflexive. This means they need a pronoun that reflects the action back to the subject. Literally, this sentence translates to she raises herself and seats herself.
Why does the reflexive pronoun change from se to s'?
Both are the reflexive pronoun for elle. You use se before a consonant, like the l in lève. When the next verb starts with a vowel, like the a in assied, you drop the e and use an apostrophe to make the pronunciation flow better.
The base verb for getting up is se lever. Why does it have an accent mark in se lève?
se lever has a spelling change. Because the ending e in the elle form is silent, French adds a grave accent (è) to the middle e so it has a clear, open sound.
What is the base verb for s'assied and why does it look so different?
The base verb is s'asseoir meaning to sit down. It is a highly irregular verb, so its forms like elle s'assied do not follow the normal conjugation patterns and just need to be memorized.

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