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Je descends du bus.

Je descends du bus.
I get off the bus.
FromLesson 18inHardcore French

Breakdown of Je descends du bus.

je
I
le bus
the bus
du
from the
descendre
to get off

Questions & Answers about Je descends du bus.

Why does descendre end in -s in je descends?

Because descendre is a regular -re verb. In the present tense, verbs ending in -re take these endings:
je -s
tu -s
il/elle -
nous -ons
vous -ez
ils/elles -ent
So with je, you attach -s, giving je descends.

Why is it du bus and not de le bus or just de bus?
  1. de + le always contracts to du in French, so de le bus → du bus.
  2. You need the definite article here because in French you often use the article with modes of transport or locations. Dropping the article (de bus) isn’t allowed in this construction.
Could I say je descends le bus without du?
No. Descendre in the sense “to get off” always takes de + article when you specify what you’re getting off. Omitting the preposition makes the sentence ungrammatical.
Why don’t I use être here, as in je suis descendu?

You’re using the present tense: je descends. In compound tenses (passé composé), descendre often takes être as its auxiliary when it’s intransitive (i.e. “to get off”). For example:
– Je suis descendu du bus hier. (I got off the bus yesterday.)
But in the present, you simply conjugate descendre normally, without any auxiliary.

Can I use sortir du bus instead of descendre du bus?

You can, but there’s a nuance:
– sortir de means “to exit” more generally (e.g. “exit a building, a car, a room”).
– descendre de is specifically “to get off” (a bus, train, bicycle).
So on a bus, je descends du bus is more idiomatic, while je sors du bus sounds odd, as if the bus were a room.

Why can’t I drop je and just say descends du bus?
French is non-pro-drop, meaning you need the subject pronoun. Unlike Spanish or Italian, you can’t omit je; the verb ending alone doesn’t identify the subject clearly.
Could I place du bus at the beginning? Like Du bus je descends?
Grammatically it’s possible for emphasis or poetic style, but it’s unusual in everyday speech. The neutral word order is Subject + Verb + Complement (Je descends du bus).
How would I express “I’m about to get off the bus” in French?

You can use the near future:
– Je vais descendre du bus.
Literally, “I am going to get off the bus.”

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“How does grammatical gender work in French?”
Every French noun is either masculine or feminine, and this affects the articles and adjectives used with it. "Le" is used with masculine nouns and "la" with feminine ones. Adjectives also change form to match — for example, "petit" (masc.) becomes "petite" (fem.).

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