Breakdown of Le trajet pour aller au travail est long.
Questions & Answers about Le trajet pour aller au travail est long.
Trajet means the journey / trip / commute between two points, often a fairly ordinary, repeated or practical trip (like going to work, school, etc.).
trajet: the journey/ride itself, the distance covered
- Le trajet pour aller au travail est long. = The commute is long.
- C’est un trajet de 30 minutes.
voyage: more like a trip/travel (often longer, more “special”)
- Un voyage en France = a trip to France
- You wouldn’t normally call your daily commute a voyage.
chemin: literally path/way (physical or figurative)
- Le chemin est difficile. = The path is difficult.
- More like the literal route or a figurative one (life path).
route: the road (the infrastructure) or a driving route
- La route est dangereuse. = The road is dangerous.
- Quelle est la meilleure route pour y aller ? = What’s the best route to get there?
So trajet is the natural word for a commute or a specific “getting from A to B” journey in this sentence.
Au is a contraction of à + le.
- à + le = au
- à + les = aux
You must use the contracted form in standard French:
- ✅ Je vais au travail.
- ❌ Je vais à le travail.
So au travail literally means “to the work / to work” and is grammatically required.
Pour aller expresses the purpose: the journey for going to work.
- Le trajet pour aller au travail est long.
→ Focus on “The journey (whose purpose is) going to work is long.”
You can say:
- Le trajet au travail est long.
This is understandable and sometimes heard, but:
- It sounds a bit more ambiguous (is it the road to work? the time to work?).
- Le trajet pour aller au travail is clearer and more natural in careful/standard speech because it spells out the purpose (the trip in order to go to work).
The adjective must agree with the noun it describes.
- trajet is masculine singular: le trajet
- Therefore the adjective must also be masculine singular: long
So:
- ✅ Le trajet est long. (masculine)
- ✅ La route est longue. (feminine: route)
If the noun were feminine, you would use longue, but for trajet, masculine long is correct.
Yes, you can change the word order:
Le trajet pour aller au travail est long.
→ Neutral: “The journey … is long.”Le long trajet pour aller au travail…
→ Emphasizes that the trip itself is long. You’d typically continue the sentence:
Le long trajet pour aller au travail me fatigue.
= The long trip to work tires me.
Both are correct; the original sentence simply uses the more neutral structure “noun + verb to be + adjective.”
In French, you normally need an article in front of a singular countable noun.
- Le trajet = the commute/journey (general, habitual)
- Un trajet = a commute/journey (one among others)
So you must say:
- ✅ Le trajet pour aller au travail est long.
- ❌ Trajet pour aller au travail est long.
Dropping the article here sounds ungrammatical in French.
Both are possible, but they emphasize slightly different things:
aller au travail = to go to (the place of) work
- Focus on the destination (the workplace).
- Works well with trajet because you’re talking about the physical commute.
aller travailler = to go (in order) to work (to do work)
- Focus on the activity (working), not so much the physical place.
- Example: Je vais travailler. (I’m going to work / I’m going to do some work.)
You could say:
- Le trajet pour aller travailler est long.
This is grammatically fine, but when speaking about commutes, aller au travail is the more typical expression.
Travail means work in general, and by extension, the place where you work in many contexts.
- Je vais au travail.
= I’m going to work (the place, in everyday speech).
Bureau specifically means office / desk.
- Je vais au bureau.
= I’m going to the office.
If someone works in an office, both can refer to roughly the same destination, but:
- au travail focuses on work as an activity / job.
- au bureau focuses on the office as a physical place.
So you could say:
- Le trajet pour aller au bureau est long.
if you specifically mean “to the office.” The original is more general.
No. Long and loin are different:
long = long (adjective)
- Describes the length of something.
- Le trajet est long. = The journey is long.
loin = far (adverb/adjective)
- Describes distance.
- Le travail est loin. = Work is far away.
- C’est loin. = It’s far.
So in this sentence, long is correct because you’re describing the length of the journey, not directly saying that work is far away.
Yes, the simple present in French often expresses:
- a general truth
- a habitual or regular situation
So:
- Le trajet pour aller au travail est long.
= My commute (in general / usually) is long.
If you wanted to talk about a future specific situation, you could use the future:
- Le trajet pour aller au travail sera long demain.
= The commute to work will be long tomorrow.
No, Le trajet d’aller au travail is not idiomatic; it sounds wrong to a native speaker.
To express purpose after a noun, French normally uses pour + infinitive:
- ✅ Le temps pour aller au travail
- ✅ La meilleure façon pour aller au travail
- ✅ Le trajet pour aller au travail
Using de + infinitive often works after adjectives or certain verbs, not in this structure:
- Content d’aller au travail (happy to go to work)
- J’ai décidé d’aller au travail. (I decided to go to work.)
So in your sentence, pour aller is the natural and correct choice.
You keep the structure but make the noun, verb, and adjective plural:
- Les trajets pour aller au travail sont longs.
Changes:
- Le trajet → Les trajets (plural noun)
- est → sont (plural verb)
- long → longs (plural adjective: add -s)
A few key points:
- long is pronounced as a single syllable: roughly [lɔ̃] (nasal on sound).
- The final -g is silent here: you don’t say a hard g sound.
In Le trajet pour aller au travail est long:
- long stands at the end, so you just say [lɔ̃].
- There’s no following vowel word to trigger a liaison, so the g remains silent.