In this video, I tell you about my move. I was absent for 1 month on the channel because I was busy with my move. I took this opportunity to make a video with some of my favourite words and expressions in French related to this theme.

Transcript of the video

Hello everyone. I hope you're well. First of all, I'd like to wish you a happy new year in 2021. I wish you happiness and success in everything you do. It's been a few weeks since I last posted a video. If you've subscribed to the channel, you may have received my message explaining that I was in the process of moving. Thank you very much for your messages of happiness. The theme of today's video is moving.

A few of you have written to me asking me to make a video on this topic, as there are a lot of vocabulary words that could be interesting for you, a lot of expressions. Indeed, if you want to talk about this topic in French, or if you want to move to France. If you're planning to move to a French-speaking country, a country where French is spoken, it might be interesting for you to learn more about these vocabulary words on the subject of moving and real estate in general.

This was the case for Hugo, for example, who posted this comment asking me to make a video on this subject. Before starting, think about activating the subtitles, it will be easier for you to understand the video and especially to see the words written in French, the expressions written in French, you will remember them better. If you are new on the channel, think about subscribing to see all the videos.

This video will be divided into four parts. The first part will be devoted to finding an apartment or a house. The second part is devoted to moving house.

The third part will be devoted to moving in, and the fourth to furnishing.

I've already used three words that are very similar. Maybe you haven't even heard the difference: there was the word move, move-in and move-out. Let me start by explaining these words and the difference between them. Moving and the verb déménager (I'm moving, you're moving, he's moving, etc.) mean leaving a dwelling, leaving an apartment, a house to move into a new house or apartment. For example, I could say I'm moving out on Saturday, I have to pack all my boxes and return my keys to the owner of the apartment.

So you move out of one apartment and into another. The second word was emménagement or moving in. Once you've moved, you move into a new apartment. So that's arriving in a new place. For example, I could say I've just moved into a new house in the south of France. And finally, the third word is aménagement, with the verb aménager. When you've moved somewhere, you're going to arrange the spaces. So, it means to organize a room. It's the way you arrange the furniture. For example, in my new apartment, I've set up an office area in my living room. I've set aside a small space in my living room, where I've installed a small table and a chair for working.

Now that we've seen these three vocabulary words that will recur many times in the video, let's start with part 1: finding an apartment or house. Let's start with the different French names for accommodation. You can live in an apartment. An apartment is when you live in a building where there are different dwellings. So you don't live in the whole building, you live in part of it. There are different kinds of apartments. There are studios. If I live in a studio, I'm living in an apartment with just one room. For example, we'll have a very small kitchen, maybe a sofa bed. It's a sofa that folds out to make a bed. So, it's a small space. Our apartment can also be a duplex. When we live in a duplex, again, it's an apartment in a shared building. But in our apartment, there will be stairs and a floor. In France, and I specify France because this is not the case in all French-speaking countries, in all countries where French is spoken, apartments are referred to as T2, T3, T4, T5. This is interesting for you, if you're planning to come and live in France and are looking for an apartment, because it's a rather peculiar way of counting. In fact, a T2 means a one-bedroom apartment. So we assume that there's always a bathroom and a kitchen. And why do we say 2 because there's a living room and a bedroom. For example, a T3 would be an apartment with a living room and two bedrooms. Then, of course, there's the house. When you live in a house, that means you occupy the whole space, the whole building. You don't share. My partner and I rented an apartment. When you're a tenant, it means that every month you pay rent to a landlord, the owner of the apartment. We have a lease. In French, a bail is the contract you sign with a landlord when you move into an apartment. Together, we decided to become landlords ourselves, so we wanted to buy our own apartment and no longer be tenants. In French, when we rent, we say nous louons un appartement or je loue une maison, we rent a house. We were looking for a T3. As I said, a T3 is an apartment with a living room and two bedrooms. To find our apartment, we decided to go to an estate agency. In French, an estate agency is a place where owners put an apartment, house, studio, etc. up for sale or rent.

We went to see some real estate agents. An estate agent is the person who works in a real estate agency. They show you around apartments, help you sell, rent or buy. We visited a number of apartments with real estate agents.

The French expression for going to see an apartment to rent or buy is "visiter un appartement" or "visiter une maison". Generally speaking, when you want to buy or rent an apartment through an agency, when an estate agent helps you, you have to pay what's called an agency fee. In France, there are also websites for selling or renting apartments. These are sites that can be used by private individuals between themselves. Private individuals are people like you and me. They're not professionals. These sites are Leboncoin or PAP, for example. This will enable you, for example, to save money, so you won't have to pay the famous agency fees. That's how we found our apartment on a website. Once we'd found it, we had to go to the bank to take out a mortgage. A mortgage is when you borrow money from the bank to buy the apartment, to pay for it. There are several expressions in French that mean the same thing, that mean a mortgage. You can say je fais un emprunt, you can say un prêt immobilier or un crédit immobilier.

You ask the bank for money to buy your apartment or house. Once you've got your mortgage, once you've obtained your loan, so we say obtain a loan, obtain a credit, it means that the bank lends you the money.

We go before a notary. In French, the notaire is the person who will conclude the purchase between the seller and us.

Let's move on to part 2. Moving. When we move, we have to pack what we call cardboard boxes. We put all our belongings in cardboard boxes. To protect the most fragile items, such as crockery, we use bubble wrap. Bubble wrap is transparent plastic paper with slightly inflated balls to protect it. The tape we use to close boxes is called scotch tape. When you move out of an apartment where you've been renting. We were tenants, we did the housework, we cleaned everything before the inventory of fixtures. In French, l'état des lieux is an expression used to describe the moment when the landlord comes to look at the apartment and check that everything's in order and nothing's broken. In French, la caution is the sum of money you give to a landlord when you move into an apartment. He'll keep it if, for example, you break something. Once all the boxes are packed, it's off to move all the boxes, all our stuff, all the furniture. Generally, when we move, we use a van, a small truck or a moving truck.

If you've got a lot of stuff or don't feel like carrying it all yourself, you can call in movers. These are people whose job it is to carry all your boxes and furniture to your new apartment. When you're moving, you can also ask friends to help you carry all the boxes. Let's move on to part 3: moving in. Time to move into the new apartment. Once we'd removed all our belongings and boxes from our old apartment, it was time to move into our new home.

In French, you could say "notre chez nous" or "mon chez moi", meaning where you live. Fortunately, there's an elevator. If you have to carry all the furniture and boxes up the stairs, it can be very difficult, especially for us, as we live on the fifth floor. If we have to carry all the boxes and all the furniture, for example a fridge, a bed, a sofa up the stairs, it can be very complicated. Once the furniture and boxes were in the apartment, we had to live in the boxes for a few days.

You may have heard the expression, living out of boxes. It means that you've just moved in, but you don't have all the furniture you need to start unpacking and putting things away. So, all around us, there are boxes. So for a few days, we'll be living out of boxes. Let's move on to part 4, the fitting-out. Once we've moved in and got the keys to our new apartment, it's time to organize the apartment, organize the space. Before, we lived in a smaller apartment, so we were short of furniture. Since we were moving into a larger apartment, we needed new furniture, more furniture. So we had to have the furniture delivered. Delivery means, for example, that you place an order on the Internet and people bring the furniture to your home. Once we'd received all the furniture, we had to assemble it. In French, monter un meuble means to assemble a piece of furniture. For example, we assembled this bookcase. It arrived, there were boards, screws and we had to assemble it. When you assemble furniture, you use different tools, such as a screwdriver, a screwdriver or a hammer.

We set up the different rooms with our old and new furniture. We did the decorating, for example, we repainted the walls, they said repaint because the walls were already painted, but we wanted to change the color. When painting walls, you generally need a brush, a roller and, of course, paint.

Now that our apartment is fully furnished and we've almost finished decorating, I'll have more time to make new videos. I already hope you've enjoyed this video, that you've been able to learn some new vocabulary. And that you're super-motivated to continue learning French and improving your French in 2021. If you liked this video, remember to put a like and if you're new, remember to subscribe so you don't miss any videos.

See you soon.