Welcome back to our weekly French blog! We hope you’re looking forward to learning all about the verb fumer.
Listen to the audio clip below to hear how to pronounce it in the infinitive:
As for its translation, you might have spotted some familiarities in English already. Thinking about the word ‘fume’ might have sparked up an idea of how to translate fumer into English – it means ‘to smoke’.
It follows the regular conjugation pattern for -er verbs, which feels quite simple overall. However, there are some interesting things to think about when you consider this verb separately as a transitive and intransitive verb.
We’ll begin with the transitive use, meaning a verb that needs a direct object to make sense. To illustrate what this really means, think about objects that a person could smoke, as in the physical act of inhaling:
Notre grand-père fumait toujours une pipe. Our grandfather always used to smoke a pipe.
Il a cessé de fumer le tabac il y a quatre ans. He stopped smoking tobacco four years ago.
Si tu fumes autant de cigarettes, tu risques des maladies cardiovasculaires. If you smoke so many cigarettes, you’re putting yourself at risk of cardiovascular diseases.
As an intransitive verb, fumer still means ‘to smoke’, but the subject is doing the action of smoking. To illustrate this case, think more about smoke coming off something – not inhaling smoke, but giving it off. This usage also brings about some extra options for translation:
Il faut chercher du bois, les cheminées ne fument plus. We need to look for some wood, the chimneys aren’t smoking any more.
Quand la soupe fume dans la marmite, elle sera prête. When the soup is steaming in the pot, it will be ready.
On aurait peur si le volcan commençait à fumer. We would be scared if the volcano started giving off smoke.
There are also some very common signs in France which use the verb in its infinitive. You’re most likely to see these written in all capital letters inside public places:
défense de fumer no smoking
interdiction de fumer no smoking
fumer tue smoking kills
Finally, this verb has more grammatical uses that you might think. Its past participle fumé is the root of a related adjective and also a related noun:
fumé / fumée / fumes / fumées smoked (adjective)
la fumée smoke (noun)
Aimez-vous le saumon fumé ? Do you like smoked salmon?
Quelqu’un a fait un grand feu hier soir, on pouvait voir de loin la fumée. Someone had a bonfire last night, we could see the smoke from far away.
Thanks for checking out our French word of the week. If you keep coming back every week to learn another word, you’ll soon be smoking any French vocabulary tests!
Written by Holly Tarbet, freelance copywriter and editor.
All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.
