Dans cette maison, la vaisselle se fait souvent après le dîner.

In this house, the dishes are often done after dinner.

Breakdown of Dans cette maison, la vaisselle se fait souvent après le dîner.

• la maison: the house
• dans: in
• souvent: often
• après: after
• cette: this
• le dîner: the dinner
• la vaisselle: the dishes
• se faire: to be done

Questions & Answers about Dans cette maison, la vaisselle se fait souvent après le dîner.

What exactly does la vaisselle mean here? Does it mean “the dishes” or “doing the dishes”?

La vaisselle can mean both:

1. The physical objects:

   • la vaisselle = the dishes / the crockery

2. The activity:

   • faire la vaisselle = to do the dishes / to wash up

In the sentence Dans cette maison, la vaisselle se fait souvent après le dîner, la vaisselle is understood as the task of washing the dishes, not just the plates themselves.
So a good natural translation is: “In this house, the dishes usually get done after dinner.”

Why is it la vaisselle se fait and not something like nous faisons la vaisselle?

La vaisselle se fait uses what’s often called a pronominal passive or “middle voice” in French.

• se fait literally looks like “does itself”, but that is not the meaning.
• Here, se is used to make the sentence more impersonal, a bit like:
  • “The dishes get done”
  • “Dishwashing is done”

The focus is on the habit and on the action itself, not on who is doing it.

If you said:

• Nous faisons souvent la vaisselle après le dîner.
• On fait souvent la vaisselle après le dîner.

you’d be clearly saying “We / people do the dishes…”, which is more personal.

La vaisselle se fait sounds more like describing a general rule of the household, almost like saying “Around here, the dishes get done after dinner.”

Who is actually doing the dishes in la vaisselle se fait? Where did the subject “we” go?

Grammatically, the subject is la vaisselle, but that’s only formal grammar.
In terms of meaning, the people who live in the house are obviously the ones doing it.

French often leaves out the doer when:

• the doer is obvious (the people in the house),
• or not important (the rule/habit matters more than the person).

So:

• Dans cette maison, la vaisselle se fait souvent après le dîner.
  = “In this house, the dishes usually get done after dinner.”

You could mentally expand it as:

• “In this house, the dishes get done (by us) after dinner,”

but French does not add a par + person here (you wouldn’t say par nous in this structure). The idea of “we” is just understood from context.

Could I say On fait souvent la vaisselle après le dîner instead? Is that equivalent?

Yes, that’s perfectly correct and very natural:

• On fait souvent la vaisselle après le dîner.
  = “We often do the dishes after dinner.”

Differences in nuance:

• La vaisselle se fait souvent après le dîner

  • more impersonal / general; sounds like talking about a rule or system in that household.
  • slightly more formal or descriptive.

• On fait souvent la vaisselle après le dîner

  • more personal / conversational.
  • very common in everyday spoken French.

Both are correct; the original just chooses to highlight the habit rather than the people performing it.

Why not say la vaisselle est souvent faite après le dîner instead of la vaisselle se fait souvent…?

You can say:

• La vaisselle est souvent faite après le dîner.

It is grammatically correct and uses the standard être + past participle passive, similar to English:

• “The dishes are often done after dinner.”

However, in everyday French, the se faire construction is often preferred for this kind of habitual, generic action:

• La vaisselle se fait souvent après le dîner.
  sounds a bit more natural and less heavy than
• La vaisselle est souvent faite après le dîner.

The être-passive tends to feel slightly more formal or written, while se fait sounds more neutral and common in speech.

What is the role of se in se fait? Does it always make the verb passive like this?

Se in se fait is a reflexive/pronominal marker, but its function varies depending on the verb and context.

Here, in la vaisselle se fait:

• se is used in a “pronominal passive” sense:
  • “the dishes get done”

But se faire is very flexible and appears in other patterns:

1. Truly reflexive:

   • se faire mal = to hurt oneself
   • Elle s’est fait mal. = She hurt herself.

2. Causative (“to have something done”):

   • se faire couper les cheveux = to get one’s hair cut
   • Je me fais couper les cheveux demain. = I’m getting my hair cut tomorrow.

3. Impersonal / general:

   • Ça se fait = That’s done / People do that (it’s customary).
   • Ça ne se fait pas. = That’s not done / That’s not appropriate.

So se doesn’t always mean “passive”, but in la vaisselle se fait, it’s functioning in that passive-like, impersonal way.

Why is souvent placed before après le dîner? Could I move it?

The default position for adverbs like souvent in simple tenses is after the conjugated verb:

• la vaisselle se fait souvent …

Then time expressions like après le dîner typically go at the end:

• La vaisselle se fait souvent après le dîner.

Other possibilities:

• Souvent, la vaisselle se fait après le dîner.
  (fronted souvent, emphasizing “often” — this is fine, more stylistic.)

Less natural:

• La vaisselle se fait après le dîner souvent.
  This can be heard in speech, but it sounds a bit clumsy or overly heavy at the end.

So the original order (se fait souvent + time phrase at the end) is the most standard and neutral.

Why is it après le dîner and not just après dîner?

Both exist, but they’re not used in the same way.

1. après le dîner (with article)

   • Very standard and common:
     • après le dîner, après le repas, après la réunion, etc.
   • Literally: “after the dinner”.

2. après dîner (without article)

   • More idiomatic/fixed, and a bit more literary or old-fashioned in modern French.
   • Still correct, but less neutral in contemporary spoken French.

Also note regional differences:

• In France, le dîner is the evening meal.
• In Belgium, Switzerland, Québec, dîner can mean lunch, and souper often means the evening meal.

So, for clear, neutral French (especially as a learner), après le dîner is the safest and most standard option.

What does Dans cette maison really convey? Is it just physical, or more like “in this family / in this household”?

Dans cette maison literally means “in this house”, but in context it often carries a social/household meaning:

• Dans cette maison, la vaisselle se fait souvent après le dîner.
  = “In this house / In this household, the dishes usually get done after dinner.”

It implies:

• “This is how things are done in this home, according to the rules/habits of the people who live here.”

You could say:

• Dans cette famille, on fait la vaisselle après le dîner.
  (“In this family, we do the dishes after dinner.”)
• Ici, la vaisselle se fait après le dîner.
  (“Here, the dishes get done after dinner.”)

These are close in meaning; dans cette maison just slightly emphasizes the place + its way of doing things.

How would this sentence look in the past? And does the past participle of se faire agree with la vaisselle?

Two main options, depending on what you want to express:

1. Imperfect for a past habit:

   • Dans cette maison, la vaisselle se faisait souvent après le dîner.
     = “In this house, the dishes were often done after dinner” / “used to be done”.

   No agreement issue here: se faisait is just the imperfect form.

2. Passé composé for completed actions (still possibly habitual, but viewed as series of completed events):

   • Dans cette maison, la vaisselle s’est souvent faite après le dîner.

   Here you see faite with an -e:

   • la vaisselle is feminine singular.
   • In this pronominal passive use, the past participle fait agrees with the subject, so it becomes faite.

In everyday speech, some native speakers skip this agreement and say s’est souvent fait, but in careful written French, s’est souvent faite is the recommended form.