From Sunrise to Bedtime: My Busy Day in France
What does a typical busy day look like when you live in France and commute to work every morning? This is a simple but effective question to help students speak and describe their daily schedule.
For many English learners, however, describing this kind of routine is not as easy as it seems. Small grammar mistakes, direct translations from French, and unnatural expressions often appear in their writing.
In my teaching experience, I have noticed that students tend to make the same types of mistakes repeatedly, mainly because they translate directly from French into English.
Today, the goal is to learn from these mistakes, identify the key difficulties, and understand how to improve them in a more natural way.
I will present a real example of how a French student described his busy day and we will analyze it step by step and at the end of this post you will see the corrected version.
👉Try to read the student’s text carefully and identify five
mistakes yourself.
Can you spot the grammar, vocabulary, and natural
expression errors?
The Most Common English Mistakes French Speakers Make
1. Irregular Verbs are a major difficulty
French learners of English often make consistent mistakes
when forming the past tense, especially by incorrectly
adding “-ed” to verbs. This usually happens because
English contains a large number of irregular
past tense verbs, while French verb conjugation
follows more structured and predictable patterns.
As a result, learners tend to overgeneralize the “-ed”
rule and apply it to all verbs, even when irregular
forms are required. This difference between the
two languages can lead to common errors such as “I goed”
instead of “I went” or “I eated” instead of “I ate.”
Understanding this contrast between English
irregularity and French verb patterns is essential
for improving accuracy in past tense usage.
For example
drive → drove
ride → rode
write → wrote
put→ put
As you can see in the text I putted my Laptop.
❌ putted
✅ put
I put my laptop in my bag.
Yesterday I put my keys on the table.
Drived to the train station
❌ drived
✅ drove
I drove to the station
2. Direct Translation from French
French learners often translate expressions word for word.
Example:
❌ I listened music
✅ I listened to music
Why?
In French:
“écouter de la musique”
The structure is different in English because listen requires the
preposition to.
Rule:
In English, some verbs need a fixed preposition.
These combinations are called collocations.
Other examples:
listen to music
arrive in Paris
depend on someone
👉Another point
❌ an orange juice
✅ some orange juice / a glass of orange juice
Why?
In French:
“un jus d’orange”
But in English, orange juice is usually uncountable.
So we say:
some orange juice
a glass of orange juice
👉“A little coffee” does not mean what the student intended
❌ a little coffee
✅ a small coffee / a cup of coffee
Why?
In English:
a little coffee = a small quantity of coffee
But French learners often translate directly from:
“un petit café”
which actually means:
a small coffee,
an espresso,
or simply a coffee.
👉 Focus on this sentence
I returned to work and relaxed by playing babyfoot with different colleagues from other services.
This sentence is understandable, but it contains a
few very typical French expressions translated
directly into English.
“Babyfoot” is French
❌ babyfoot
✅ table football / foosball
In English:
British English → table football
American English → foosball
3. Present vs Past Tense Consistency
One of the most common speaking mistakes among
French learners is tense inconsistency. Students may
begin a story in the past tense and suddenly switch to
the present tense without noticing it.
This usually happens because they focus more on
ideas and communication than on verb structure
while speaking.
Example
❌ there is a problem with my train
✅ there was a problem with my train
👍Let’s have a look at the corrected version
I woke up at 5:40 a.m.
After a quick shower and getting dressed, I had breakfast, usually a small coffee and some orange juice.
I checked my bag and made sure I had put my laptop, my phone charger, and all my papers inside.
I checked the SNCF messages to see if there were any problems with my train.
I left my house around 6 o’clock and drove to the train station.
I took the train to Paris around 6:30 a.m., and it took me about an hour to reach my destination.
During the trip, I worked on my English lessons, listened to music, or played on my phone.
I arrived in Paris around 8 o’clock and took the RER to the office.
After a quick coffee, I started work by answering many emails. I had several meetings with colleagues and customers.
I had lunch with my colleagues at the office restaurant around 12 o’clock.
I returned to work and relaxed by playing table football with colleagues from different departments.
In the afternoon, I continued working, attended another meeting with a laboratory to check current mechanical tests, and finished an important simulation report.
I usually left the office around 4:30 p.m. and took the train home.
During the trip, I rested because I was tired and listened to music on Spotify.
I arrived home in the evening around 7:20 p.m.
I ate dinner with my family.
After dinner, I washed the dishes, played with my children, and watched a series at the end of the day.
I went to bed around 11:00 p.m. and spent some time on social media such as Instagram and Facebook checking the latest news.
I also talked with my wife about our day before going to sleep.
I hope this article was helpful. I will write more posts like this so that you can learn directly from your own mistakes and improve your English naturally.
I encourage you to write about your own life experiences, daily routines, work, travels, or personal stories. Writing regularly is one of the fastest ways to improve your vocabulary, grammar, and confidence in English. I will be happy to help you learn more naturally and effectively.
If you want to practice more vocabulary related to daily routines and everyday activities, you can check the resources below.
Everyday activities in English Complete list
Remember: consistency is the key to everything — whether you want to grow your money, take care of a plant, improve your fitness, or learn a language. Small daily efforts create big results over time.
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