Healthy living and lifestyle: Vocabulary in context
Vocabulary for healthy living and lifestyle covers the words needed to discuss health, diet and lifestyle choices in French: nouns such as la santé (health), une alimentation équilibrée (a balanced diet), les matières grasses (fatty foods) and le sucre (sugar); the verbs faire du sport, éviter (to avoid), fumer (to smoke) and grignoter (to snack); and the impersonal structures used to give advice, such as il faut/il ne faut pas plus an infinitive and il vaut mieux plus an infinitive.
Before you start
Make sure you're comfortable with these topics first:
Method
- Learn the core nouns with their gender: la santé, une alimentation équilibrée, les matières grasses (plural), le sucre, le tabac, la malbouffe (junk food), le stress.
- Learn the key verbs for habits: faire du sport, éviter de plus infinitive, fumer, grignoter (to snack between meals), sauter un repas (to skip a meal), se détendre (to relax), dormir suffisamment (to sleep enough).
- Learn the false friend un régime: in a health context it means a diet (suivre un régime = to be on a diet), not a political régime, and it is different again from une drogue, an illegal drug - do not confuse un régime, un médicament (medicine) and une drogue.
- Master the impersonal advice structures examiners reward: il faut/il ne faut pas plus infinitive (you must/must not), il vaut mieux plus infinitive (it is better to), il est essentiel de plus infinitive - all followed by an unconjugated verb.
- Learn the adjective sain/saine (healthy, of food or a lifestyle) and keep it separate from en bonne forme/en bonne santé (fit/healthy, of a person), since sain describes the diet, not the person, in most exam-style sentences.
- Practise building a two-part sentence: a habit plus its consequence, using parce que or car, e.g. 'Il ne faut pas grignoter entre les repas, car cela peut mener à l'obésité.'
- When reading or listening, listen out for quantifiers before food nouns (trop de sucre, pas assez de fruits, beaucoup de matières grasses) - these carry the actual meaning of the sentence, not just the noun itself.
Worked example
Translate into French: 'In my opinion, you must eat a balanced diet and you should avoid junk food, because it is bad for your health.'
- Open with the fixed opinion phrase: à mon avis.
- Translate the first piece of advice using il faut plus infinitive: il faut manger une alimentation équilibrée.
- Translate 'you should avoid' with the softer il vaut mieux éviter, followed by the noun la malbouffe (junk food), not a literal word-for-word rendering.
- Add the reason with car or parce que plus c'est mauvais pour la santé.
- Join the two halves into one sentence: 'À mon avis, il faut manger une alimentation équilibrée et il vaut mieux éviter la malbouffe, car c'est mauvais pour la santé.'
Practice questions
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Q1What is the gender of alimentation, and how would you say 'a balanced diet'?Show answer
Answer: Feminine - une alimentation équilibrée.
Q2Translate into English: 'Il ne faut pas sauter le petit-déjeuner.'Show answer
Answer: You must not skip breakfast.
Q3Give one French verb meaning 'to snack between meals.'Show answer
Answer: grignoter
Q4What does un régime mean in a health context, and what unrelated English word does it resemble?Show answer
Answer: It means a diet (as in suivre un régime, to be on a diet); it resembles but does not mean the English 'régime' (a system of government).
Q5Translate into French: 'It is better to relax and sleep enough.'Show answer
Answer: Il vaut mieux se détendre et dormir suffisamment.
Q6Correct the error: 'Le fast-food n'est pas sain, mais mon frère est très sain aussi.'Show answer
Answer: Le fast-food n'est pas sain, mais mon frère est en très bonne forme aussi (sain describes food/diet; a person is en bonne forme or en bonne santé).
Q7Give the French for 'fatty foods' (plural noun).Show answer
Answer: les matières grasses
Exam-style questions
Written in the style of a GCSE French exam paper, with a full mark scheme.
Lisez ce texte, puis répondez aux questions en anglais. 'Pour rester en forme, j'essaie de manger cinq fruits et légumes par jour et je fais du sport trois fois par semaine. Par contre, mon frère grignote constamment entre les repas et il ne fait jamais d'exercice. Mes parents disent qu'il devrait éviter le sucre et dormir plus, mais il ne les écoute pas.' (a) How many times a week does the writer do sport? (1 mark) (b) Give two details about the brother's habits that concern the parents. (2 marks) (c) What two pieces of advice do the parents give the brother? (2 marks)
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Écrivez environ 40 mots en français sur votre santé et votre alimentation. Mentionnez: ce que vous mangez normalement; si vous faites du sport; et un changement que vous voudriez faire.
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See real GCSE French past-paper questions, with official mark schemes →
Free printable worksheet
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