French word of the week: rester

Welcome back, French learners. We hope that you’re looking forward to another word of the week. This time, we’re looking at the verb rester.

Listen to the audio clip below to hear how to correctly pronounce rester:

The main English translations of rester are to stay, to be left or to remain. You might recognise the English word rest within this verb – but beware of mistranslating it in the sense of rest and relaxation, as this is not quite the same meaning.

While a lot of the grammar surrounding verbs can be complicated, rester follows a regular conjugation in every tense. For more about this, see our Easy Learning French Grammar page about regular conjugation -er verbs in the present tense. Note that it takes être as its auxiliary verb. But while its conjugation is fairly simple, that doesn’t mean there aren’t complications elsewhere.

We can use rester as an intransitive verb, but also an impersonal verb. Let’s first take a look at some examples of intransitive use:

rester à la maison to stay at home

rester au lit to stay in bed

Nous sommes restés à Marseille ce week-end. We stayed in Marseille this weekend.

Ces mémoires resteront toujours avec moi. These memories will stay with me forever.

Ne dis pas à personne. Cette information doit rester entre nous. Don’t tell anyone. This information needs to stay between us.

Tu restes ici, ou tu préfères rentrer chez toi ? Are you staying here, or would you rather go home?

rester à l’écart de quelqu’un ou quelque chose to stay well away from someone or something

rester assis(e) to stay seated

rester calme to stay calm

rester en contact avec quelqu’un to keep in touch with someone

When we use the verb impersonally, we spell and conjugate it in exactly the same way (though remember, impersonal verbs are only ever used with il). But the sense of the translation is more about something that’s left over or still to be done.

The phrases below illustrate the impersonal use of the verb:

il reste … there’s … left

Il vous reste 30 minutes. You’ve got 30 minutes left.

Il reste beaucoup du vin, tu n’en bois pas ? There’s a lot of wine left, are you not drinking?

Céline a tout mangé – il ne reste même pas du pain. Celine has eaten everything, there’s not even any bread left.

Je suis prête ! Il ne me reste plus qu’à me brosser les dents. I’m ready! I’ve just got to brush my teeth.

Give yourself a well-deserved rest after learning this new word. We’ll see you again for another blog next week!

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.