Learn Hardcore French: Ma journée commence tôt avec un café et un peu de musique. - My day starts early with a coffee and some music.

journée is a feminine noun → la journée
For a feminine singular noun with “my,” you use ma.
So:
ma journée = my day
If it were a masculine noun (e.g. mon café), you’d use mon instead.

What’s the difference between jour and journée, and why is journée used here?

Both relate to “day,” but they’re used differently:

jour = the day as a unit of time, neutral/abstract
- e.g. trois jours = three days
journée = the course of the day / how the day goes, often with a sense of duration or experience
- e.g. Bonne journée ! = Have a nice day!

In Ma journée commence tôt, the speaker is talking about how their whole day unfolds/feels, so journée is more natural than jour.

How is journée pronounced?

journée is pronounced roughly /ʒur.ne/:

j → like the s in measure or vision
ou → like oo in food
r → French guttural r in the throat
née → like nay

Syllables: jour-née, with the stress naturally falling on the last syllable in French: journÉE.

Why is the verb commence and not something like se commence?

The verb is commencer (“to begin, to start”) and here it’s used intransitively with a subject:

Ma journée commence… = My day starts…

You don’t need a reflexive form (se commencer) here. Se commencer exists but is rare and sounds literary or technical; everyday French just uses commencer:

Le film commence à 20 h. = The film starts at 8 p.m.
Ma journée commence tôt. = My day starts early.

Why is commence in this form?

It’s the present tense, 3rd person singular of commencer:

je commence
tu commences
il/elle/on commence
nous commençons
vous commencez
ils/elles commencent

The subject is ma journée (3rd person singular, like elle), so you use commence.

What exactly does tôt mean, and where does it go in the sentence?

tôt means “early” (in time).

In French, adverbs like tôt often come right after the verb they modify:

Ma journée commence tôt. = My day starts early.

You could technically move it, but other positions would sound odd or marked here. For example:

Ma journée commence tôt avec un café… (normal)
Ma journée commence avec un café… tôt. (sounds like “later I’m adding that it’s early,” a bit unnatural)

So the usual, neutral position is after the verb: commence tôt.

How is tôt pronounced, and what does the little hat (â, ê, î, ô, û) on ô do?

tôt is pronounced roughly /to/ (like toe in English):

t as in top
ô is like a closed o sound, a bit like the o in go (but without adding a w sound)
The final t is silent.

The little hat is a circumflex accent. In tôt, it mainly:

marks the vowel quality (closed o), and
historically often shows that an s used to follow (e.g. tost → tôt), but that’s just etymological now.

It doesn’t change the basic meaning; it just affects spelling and pronunciation.

Why is it avec un café and not par un café?

Both avec and par can appear after commencer, but they don’t feel the same:

commencer avec = to start with something, in the sense of accompanied by
- Ma journée commence tôt avec un café…
  → My day starts early, and I have a coffee as part of that start.
commencer par = to begin by doing something, often the first step in a sequence
- Je commence ma journée par un café.
  → I start my day by having a coffee (that’s the first action).

In the given sentence, avec suggests that coffee and music are elements present at the beginning of the day, rather than focusing on the sequence of actions.

Why is it un café and not du café?

Both are possible, but they don’t mean exactly the same thing:

un café = a coffee, usually understood as one cup of coffee (countable)
- Je prends un café. = I’ll have a coffee.
du café = some coffee, an unspecified quantity (mass noun)
- Je bois du café. = I drink coffee / I’m drinking some coffee.

In avec un café, the idea is typically “with a (cup of) coffee”, something concrete you’re having at the start of your day.
You could say avec du café, but that focuses more on the substance in general rather than one coffee you drink.

Why do we say un peu de musique and not un peu de la musique?

After expressions of quantity, French normally uses de without an article:

un peu de
- noun
beaucoup de
- noun
trop de
- noun

So:

un peu de musique = a little music
beaucoup de travail = a lot of work

un peu de la musique is possible but means something more specific like “a little (bit of the) music”, referring to a previously identified kind/portion of music.
In your sentence, we’re talking about music in general, so the correct and natural form is un peu de musique.

Why is there no article before musique? In English we say “a little music,” but sometimes “the music.”

In un peu de musique, the pattern is:

un peu de
- bare noun (no article)

That’s simply the rule after this quantity phrase. It doesn’t mean musique never takes an article:

J’écoute de la musique. = I listen to music.
La musique est trop forte. = The music is too loud.

But with un peu de, you drop the article and say:

un peu de musique
un peu de sucre (a bit of sugar)
un peu de temps (a bit of time)

Could I say Ma journée commence tôt par un café et un peu de musique instead of avec? Would it still be correct?

Yes, Ma journée commence tôt par un café et un peu de musique is grammatically correct, but the nuance changes slightly:

commence par focuses on the first action in a sequence → “My day begins by a coffee and a bit of music.”
commence avec is more like “starts (and it includes) a coffee and a bit of music”, less about sequence and more about what accompanies the start.

Both are understandable; avec sounds a bit more casual and descriptive of what you have when the day starts.

What’s the difference between ma matinée and ma journée? Could I say Ma matinée commence tôt…?

matinée = the morning period (roughly from when you wake up until around midday)
journée = the whole day (wake-up to bedtime), as an experience

So:

Ma matinée commence tôt… = My morning starts early…
Ma journée commence tôt… = My (whole) day starts early…

Both can be correct, depending on what you want to say. If you mean that your whole day starts early (not just the morning part), journée is the better choice.