French word of the week: casser

We’re back on verbs for today’s French word of the week blog – it’s time to learn about the -er verb casser.

If you take a listen to the audio clip below, you can hear the correct pronunciation of the word:

To start things off, we’ll explain what casser means in English. We can translate this verb as to break, but also to shatter, to crack or to smash.

Although casser follows a regular conjugation pattern for -er type verbs, you might want to refamiliarise yourself with the rules. Check out our Easy Learning French Grammar pages about regular conjugation of -er verbs in the present tense, the present subjunctive and imperfect tense.

Now that we’ve got some of the grammar out of the way, let’s move on to some examples using casser:

Je suis désolé d’avoir cassé ton assiette hier soir. I’m sorry for having broken your plate last night.

Ma sœur vient de casser son nouvel appareil photo. My sister just broke her new camera.

Attention à la sculpture ! Si elle tombe elle cassera net. Be careful with the sculpture! If it falls it’ll break clean in two.

On ne fait plus la lutte ensemble… la dernière fois il m’a cassé le bras. We don’t do wrestling together anymore… last time he broke my arm.

En cas d’urgence, je casserais la vitre. In an emergency, I would smash the window.

Ça passe ou ça casse. It’s make or break; It’s do or die.

casser l’ambiance to spoil the atmosphere

While you might hear it in casual, spoken French rather than formal, written French, it’s also worth knowing about a particular use of the reflexive form se casser. Its most common usage is a very informal term, but its translation isn’t very obvious:

se casser to head off; to leave; to get out of here

Cette soirée est nulle. Je me casse. This party is rubbish. I’m out of here.

Après avoir mangé le repas, ils se sont cassés vite fait. After having eaten the meal, they left right away.

Finally, another informal but fairly common usage is:

se casser la tête to go to a lot of effort/trouble

Je ne veux pas qu’elle se casse la tête pour mon anniversaire. I don’t want her to go to a lot of trouble for my birthday.

You’ve learned a new French word; do you think you’ll be able to crack another one next week? Keep it up and come back next time for another French vocabulary instalment.

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.