In this section, you will learn how to talk about where you live with the verbs habiter and vivre.
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On étudie !
We already learned how to ask and say where someone is from (Je viens de, On est de, etc.) Now we will talk about where and how someone lives.
There are several ways to say to live in French. The two most common are vivre and habiter.
Habiter is a regular -er verb: j’habite, tu habites, etc.
Vivre is irregular. It is conjugated like écrire in the present and the imperfect, but not in the passé composé).
Conjugaison du verbe vivre (to live)
Singulier
Puriel
je vis
nous vivons
tu vis
vous vivez
il, elle, on vit
ils, elles vivent
Vivre au passé
Participe passé
Imparfait
vécu
vivais, vivait, vivions, viviez, vivaient
Survivre (to survive) is conjugated in exactly the same way.
The difference between habiter and vivre depends on what you want to say.
(a) Habiter talks about where you live: to live in, inhabit, occupy.
J’habite (à) Montpelier. (I live in Montpelier.)
Est-ce que tu habites (dans) un appartement ou (dans) une maison ? (Do you live in an apartment or in a house?)
Personne n’habite ici. (No one lives here.)
Notice how a preposition is optional for cities and buildings (above). This applies to anything that could translate as to inhabit or to occupy. However, a preposition is required for a country or continent:
Il habiteau Mali. (He lives in Mali.)
Nous habitonsen Amérique du Nord. (We live in North America.)
(b) Like habiter, vivre can also say where you live:
Je vis à Tours. (I live in Tours.)
Depuis combien de temps est-ce qu’elle vit dans cette maison ? (How long has she been living in this house?)
Nous avons vécu en Asie pendant dix ans. (We lived in Asia for ten years.)
But vivre more typically expresses how you live:
Ils vivent dans la misère. (They live in poverty.)
Nous vivons ensemble depuis un an. (We’ve lived together for a year.)
Elle vit la belle vie. (She’s living the good life.)
Vivre can also indicate when someone lived (existed, was alive) or how long they lived:
Jean Racine a vécu au XVIIe siècle. (Jean Racine lived in the 17th century.)
Ma grand-mère a vécu jusqu'à 102 ans. (My grandmother lived to be 102 years old.)