🇫🇷 Think You Know How To Say “To Move” In French? #43

Effing French Words Series: “To move”

🎉 Welcome to the Premium Edition of “Learn French with Yann”! 🎉

Friendly reminder: You can unlock this full post and enjoy a 7-day free trial. That gives you full access to premium posts with deep dives into tricky French expressions, slang, pronunciation, and all those verbs that give you existential dread.

Salut les francophiles ! 🧳🍷

So, you moved to France with dreams of wine-fueled dinners and poetic conversations in cafés. Instead, you’re still trying to figure out which “move” you’re supposed to use when shifting a chair or talking about that film that made you cry into your crème brûlée.

Breathe. We've got this.

This week, we’re untangling déménager, bouger and toucher—three little verbs that cover very different kinds of “movement”. No more guessing games!

Ready? Let’s move.

---

🧠 The 3 Main Verbs You Need

🚚 Bouger → To move something (furniture, a dinner, a car, yourself…) Think shifting chairs at a dinner party, dodging pigeons in Montmartre, or adjusting your position to reach the last olive on the apéro platter.

Je ne bouge pas d’ici tant qu’on ne m’a pas servi mon plateau de fromages. → I’m not moving from here until I’ve been served my cheese board.

📦 Déménager → To move (change residence) Think packing books, accidentally labeling your wine box “bathroom,” and pretending this is a fun adventure.

Déménager en France m’a coûté une hernie, trois crises de nerfs, et une passion soudaine pour le pastis. → Moving to France cost me a hernia, three breakdowns, and a sudden passion for pastis.

😢 Toucher → To move (emotionally) Think French cinema, heartfelt letters, and the waiter who remembers your order.

Ce roman m’a touché. J’ai pleuré dans le TGV entre Paris et Nice. Deux fois. → This novel moved me. I cried on the TGV between Paris and Nice. Twice.