Breakdown of Je parle de mon futur travail.
Questions & Answers about Je parle de mon futur travail.
In French, parler needs a preposition:
- parler à quelqu’un = to speak to someone
- Example: Je parle à mon patron. = I am speaking to my boss.
- parler de quelque chose = to talk about something
- Example: Je parle de mon futur travail. = I am talking about my future job.
You cannot say parler quelque chose the way you can say to discuss something in English. Parler almost always needs à or de after it.
Parler sur exists but is rare and tends to mean to speak badly about / to gossip about, not the neutral to talk about.
It can correspond to both, depending on context.
French has only one present tense form here (je parle), and it can translate as:
- I speak about my future job. (general, habitual)
- I am speaking about my future job. (right now)
Context usually makes it clear. In isolation, Je parle de mon futur travail is most naturally understood as I am talking about my future job.
Because travail is a masculine noun in French:
- le travail = the work / the job
Possessive adjectives must agree with the gender and number of the noun, not with the person who owns it. So:
- mon travail (my job) – masculine singular
- ton travail (your job) – masculine singular
- son travail (his/her job) – masculine singular
If the noun were feminine, you would use ma:
- ma voiture (my car) – feminine singular
- ma maison (my house)
So you say mon futur travail, never ma futur travail.
Most adjectives in French usually come after the noun, but some common ones often come before (like grand, petit, jeune, vieux, beau, bon, mauvais). Futur is not one of the very common ones, but with nouns related to life, career, etc., it is regularly used before the noun:
- mon futur travail
- ma future maison
- mes futurs collègues
You can say mon travail futur, but:
- mon futur travail = very natural, neutral: the job I will have in the future
- mon travail futur can sound more technical, stylistic, or unusual in everyday speech. It might appear in formal or literary language, or in contexts like sci‑fi or theoretical writing.
For everyday French, mon futur travail is the standard, idiomatic choice.
No. In mon futur travail, futur is an adjective meaning future or that will come later.
There is also a noun le futur that can mean:
- the future (time)
- the future tense in grammar
Example:
- Je parle du futur. = I am talking about the future.
- Le futur simple est un temps. = The simple future is a tense.
But in mon futur travail, you are not talking about the grammatical tense. You are just describing a job that I will have in the future.
They all relate to work but are not used in the same way:
travail
- General word for work or job.
- Can mean both the activity and the position.
- mon travail = my job / my work.
emploi
- More formal, often means a position or post.
- Used in administrative, official, or job‑market contexts.
- Je cherche un emploi. = I am looking for a job.
boulot
- Informal, colloquial.
- Very common in spoken French.
- mon boulot = my job (like my gig / my work).
métier
- A trade, profession, or craft (often emphasizing skills).
- C’est mon métier. = It is my trade / profession.
In your sentence, Je parle de mon futur travail is neutral and perfectly normal. You could also say:
- Je parle de mon futur emploi. (a bit more formal)
- Je parle de mon futur boulot. (more informal, spoken)
- Je parle de mon futur métier. (emphasizing the profession/trade itself)
Yes, but it changes the meaning slightly.
Je parle de mon futur travail.
- Focuses specifically on the job you will have.
Je parle de mon avenir.
- Means I am talking about my future in a broader sense (life, studies, career, etc.).
If you want to keep the idea of a career while using avenir, you can say:
- Je parle de mon avenir professionnel. = I am talking about my professional future.
Because in French, de is the standard preposition used with parler to mean talk about:
- parler de quelque chose = to talk about something
Pour usually means for, indicating purpose or benefit:
- Je travaille pour mon futur travail.
- This would mean something like: I am working for my future job (which is odd).
So:
- Je parle de mon futur travail. = I am talking about my future job.
- Je me prépare pour mon futur travail. = I am preparing for my future job.
You keep parler de and change the subject pronoun and the possessive:
Other people, same singular travail:
- Tu parles de ton futur travail. = You are talking about your future job.
- Il parle de son futur travail. = He is talking about his future job.
- Elle parle de son futur travail. = She is talking about her future job.
- Nous parlons de notre futur travail. = We are talking about our future job.
- Vous parlez de votre futur travail. = You are talking about your future job.
- Ils/Elles parlent de leur futur travail. = They are talking about their future job.
Plural jobs:
- Je parle de mes futurs travaux.
- Grammatically correct but often refers to pieces of work or projects.
- Je parle de mes futurs emplois.
- Better if you mean several future positions.
- Je parle de mes futurs boulots.
- Informal: my future gigs/jobs.
A few points:
- Je: often pronounced very lightly, almost like j’.
- parle: the final -e is silent; it sounds like parl.
- de: pronounced like deuh, very short and unstressed.
- mon: nasal vowel; you do not pronounce the final n fully.
- futur: close to English future, but no y sound; more like foo‑tuʁ.
- travail:
- -trav- like trav in travel (without the e sound at the end).
- Final -ail sounds roughly like eye in English.
No mandatory liaison here: you do not link parle and de. Some speakers may make a light glide between de and mon, but you do not add a z or t sound.