Je veux m’asseoir près de la fenêtre.

Because s’asseoir is a pronominal/reflexive verb in French. The full dictionary form is s’asseoir, meaning to sit down.

When you use it after je, the reflexive pronoun changes:

• je m’assois = I sit down / I am sitting down
• je veux m’asseoir = I want to sit down

So m’ means myself here, although in natural English we usually do not say I want to seat myself.

French shortens me to m’ before a vowel sound for smoother pronunciation.

So:

• me asseoir ❌
• m’asseoir ✅

This is called elision. You will see the same thing in many places:

• je aime → j’aime
• se appeler → s’appeler
• me entendre → m’entendre

Because after veux (want), French normally uses an infinitive.

So the pattern is:

• je veux + infinitive

Examples:

• Je veux manger. = I want to eat.
• Je veux partir. = I want to leave.
• Je veux m’asseoir. = I want to sit down.

assois would be a conjugated form, and assis is usually a past participle or adjective meaning seated.

In English, after want, we usually say want to + verb. In French, after vouloir, you usually go straight to the infinitive with no extra word.

So:

• I want to sit down
• Je veux m’asseoir

This is very common in French:

• Je veux dormir. = I want to sleep.
• Nous voulons partir. = We want to leave.

Près de is a fixed expression meaning near or close to.

It works like this:

• près de + noun

Examples:

• près de la fenêtre = near the window
• près de l’école = near the school
• près du parc = near the park

It is two words because près needs de before the noun.

French usually uses an article where English often does too, and sometimes even where English would leave it out.

Here, la fenêtre means the window, so:

• près de la fenêtre = near the window

You need the article because fenêtre is a countable noun here, and you are referring to a specific thing: the window.

Because près requires de, not à.

So the correct structure is:

• près de + noun

Examples:

• près de la porte = near the door
• près du lit = near the bed

You cannot say:

• près la fenêtre ❌
• près à la fenêtre ❌

Because nouns in French have grammatical gender, and fenêtre is a feminine noun.

That is why it uses:

• la fenêtre
• not le fenêtre

Unfortunately, gender usually has to be learned with each noun. It does not always match natural gender or make logical sense from an English perspective.

A good habit is to learn nouns with their article:

• la fenêtre
• la porte
• le mur

A simple approximate pronunciation for an English speaker is:

zhuh vuh mah-swahr preh duh lah fuh-nehtr

A few notes:

• Je sounds like zhuh
• veux sounds roughly like vuh
• m’asseoir sounds roughly like mah-swahr
• près sounds like preh
• fenêtre has an è sound like eh

The final -re in fenêtre is very light, and the word is often heard approximately as fuh-netr.

Yes, s’asseoir is somewhat irregular, and it can have more than one accepted conjugation pattern in French.

For a beginner, the important thing here is:

• the infinitive is s’asseoir
• after vouloir, you use m’asseoir

You do not need to master all its conjugations just to understand this sentence.

Yes. You may sometimes see s’assoir as an alternative spelling. However, s’asseoir is generally the standard form taught most often.

So for learning purposes, it is best to remember:

• s’asseoir = standard/common form

The structure is:

• Je = subject
• veux = conjugated verb
• m’asseoir = infinitive
• près de la fenêtre = prepositional phrase showing location

So it follows a very normal French pattern:

subject + verb + infinitive + place expression

That makes the sentence quite natural and straightforward.

Yes, but it means something slightly different.

• Je veux m’asseoir près de la fenêtre = I want to sit down near the window.
• Je veux être assis près de la fenêtre = I want to be seated near the window.

The first focuses on the action of sitting down. The second focuses more on the resulting position or state.

In many situations, both are possible, but m’asseoir is the more direct match for to sit down.