With another week, comes another French word! In this edition of our blog, we’re going to look at the verb installer.
First of all, listen to our audio clip to hear its pronunciation in the infinitive form:
We know what you’re thinking – is this yet another example of a false friend? In this case, it is to an extent. While it can indeed mean ‘to install’, this is one of its less common translations. Installer has several different meanings which should be clear according to the context. It could translate as ‘to put up’, ‘to place’, ‘to lay something (down)’ and also has a related reflexive verb s’installer, which means ‘to settle in/down’.
As for the grammar, installer follows the regular conjugation pattern for -er verbs. You can find out more by heading over to our Easy Learning French Grammar section on verbs, or specific pages about the present indicative, present subjunctive and imperfect tense.
Now we can look at some examples of all these different meanings in use:
Je vous installerai dans ma chambre. Moi, je vais dormir sur le canapé. I’ll put you (up) in my bedroom. I’m going to sleep on the sofa.
On installerait une armoire contre le mur s’il y avait assez de place. We would put a wardrobe against the wall if there was enough space.
Est-ce qu’on pourrait installer le chauffage central ? Could we install central heating?
Mon frère a installé un nouveau jeu vidéo. My brother installed a new video game. (on the computer)
installer une tente to put a tent up
You might have noticed in the perfect tense example, that installer takes avoir as its auxiliary verb. But now that we’re moving on to the reflexive verb, don’t forget that reflexives take être as their auxiliary verb.
Let’s have a look at s’installer in action:
s’installer chez quelqu’un to live at someone’s house / to put yourself up at someone’s house
s’installer à la campagne to move out to the countryside
Nous en avons marre de Tokyo. Nous voudrions nous installer à la campagne. We’re sick of Tokyo. We’d like to go out and live in the countryside.
J’ai entendu que son ex-mari s’installait chez sa sœur… I heard that her ex-husband went off to live with her sister…
Bienvenue ! Installez-vous dans le canapé, je vous en prie. Welcome! Please have a seat on the sofa.
Le mois dernier, nous nous sommes installés dans notre nouvelle maison à Nice. We moved into / got settled into our new house in Nice last month.
Il me semble que l’hiver s’installe rapidement cette année. It seems like winter is setting in quickly this year.
Thank you for reading our Word of the Week blog. We hope that you enjoyed learning about the verb installer – come back again next week to get settled down and read about another French word!
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.
