To start your week off right, we’re back with another French word! In today’s word of the week blog, we’re looking at the verb sonner.
Get things started by listening to the correct pronunciation in the clip below:
As for the English meaning of this verb, it’s fairly simple – all of its translations are around the same theme. Sonner can mean ‘to ring (for)’, ‘to sound’, ‘to strike’ and ‘to chime’. From these translations, it should be easy to work out when you might use this word. However, it’s useful to know that sonner can be both used transitively and intransitively.
We’ll get into these details later, but for now we’ll also go over the grammar. To conjugate sonner, you can simply follow a regular -er verb pattern in all tenses. But for anyone who’s quite new to verb conjugation in French, check out our Easy Learning Grammar pages on regular conjugation of -er verbs in the present indicative, present subjunctive and imperfect tense.
Now we can look at sonner in action! First of all, the transitive use. This is when the subject is carrying out the verb action of ringing (sonner) to a direct object:
Les moines sonnent les cloches à la tour. The monks are ringing the bells in the tower.
Cette horloge est sur le point de sonner minuit. This clock is about to strike midnight.
Ça vous dérangerait si je sonnais le garçon d’étage. Would it bother you all if I called for room service?
When sonner is used intransitively, the translations are much the same. But you’ll see in our examples how the usage is a bit different. Intransitive verbs do not need a direct object to make sense – the subject can do the action itself. In other words, the subject is producing the ringing sound:
Le téléphone vient de sonner, c’était qui ? The telephone just rang, who was it?
J’ai sonné chez lui parce qu’il ne répondait pas aux messages. I rang his doorbell because he wasn’t responding to messages.
Elle sonnera deux fois quand elle arrive. She will ring twice when she arrives.
On a besoin d’un réveil qui sonne très fort. We need an alarm clock that rings really loudly.
sonnerfaux / juste to be out of tune/in tune (for an instrument)
sonner bien to sound good
sonner creux to sound hollow (literally); to ring hollow (figuratively)
Finally, you might also come across a French noun which feels somewhat familiar after learning about the verb sonner:
son (m) sound
Which is not to be confused with this singular French possessive adjective:
son his; her; one’s/yours; its
And neither of these should be confused with the English word of the same spelling, ‘son’, which is in fact fils in French!
Thank you for reading this week’s blog. If you come back next time, we’d love to tell you all about another word and improve your French vocabulary even more – does that sound good to you?
