Updated on January 5, 2024
Learn how to talk about the 4 seasons in French
While you may not need it as frequently as the days of the week and the months in French, especially for the expression of dates, the vocabulary around the four seasons of the year in French is still very useful. Seasons set the pace of the year in France, and there are various celebrations and activities scheduled throughout the year to commemorate the changing seasons . The solstice d’été (summer solstice), for example. has been chosen for the annual Fête de la musique (Music Day), while the sports d’hiver (winter sports) remain extremely popular from the Alps to the Pyrénées mountains.
Even if you are still at a beginner or elementary level, learning the words, the grammatical points and a few useful expressions around the seasons in French will extend your vocabulary, but also your understanding of the way of life and culture in France.
Let’s start with the basics: how to say the four seasons in French.
| French | English |
| le printemps | spring |
| l’été | summer |
| l’automne | fall |
| l’hiver | winter |
Thankfully, the pronunciation of the four seasons is fairly straightforward and with only a little practice, you should easily get it right!
Now that you know the words for the four seasons, let’s look at the grammar you’ll need to remember in order to use them in sentences.
Funnily enough, if la saison (the season) is a feminine word, the actual seasons in French are all masculine, as you can easily tell when they are used with an adjective:
| French | English |
| un printemps doux | a mild spring |
| un été chaud | a hot summer |
| un automne pluvieux | a rainy fall |
| un hiver froid | a cold winter |
Aside from talking about the weather, the seasons serve to express the time of the year, which involves using a preposition. Since the words for the seasons are all masculine in French, you might expect the same preposition to be used.
However, another factor comes into play: the first letter of the word. Three seasons out of four, namely été, automne and hiver, start with either a vowel or an h + vowel (the letter h is not pronounced in French). This is why the definite article is l’ rather than le for these three seasons, as you can see in our first table above.
This also impacts the preposition to be used, with printemps needing a different one from été, automne and hiver:
| French | English |
| au printemps | in spring |
| en été | in summer |
| en automne | in fall |
| en hiver | in winter |
With the seasons setting the tempo of life, they are often used in expressions to describe the time of the year. Let’s look at a few common ones.
Rather than using the actual words of the four seasons, a few expressions can be used to embody what these seasons stand for:
| French | English | Meaning |
| la saison des amours | the season of love | With the sunny weather and the holidays, summer is the perfect season for love. |
| la belle saison | the beautiful season | For the same reasons, summer is also known as the beautiful season. |
| la mauvaise saison | the bad season | On the other end of the spectrum, the bad season can refer either to fall or winter. |
| la saison froide | the cold season | As expected, winter is also known as the cold season. |
Seasons are also marked by specific activities, from agricultural tasks to holidays and tourism.
| French | English | Meaning |
| la saison des vendanges | the grape harvest season | Happening around September, students and seasonal workers often help with the grape harvest season before heading back to university or other temporary jobs. |
| la saison des récoltes | the harvest season | For other agricultural products, summer is the main harvest season. |
| la saison touristique | the tourist season | Depending on the French region, between the seaside and the mountains, the main tourist season may be either summer or winter. |
| la haute saison | the high season | The high season is another way to talk about the main tourist season for a specific region. |
| la basse saison | the low season | The low season often refers to spring and fall. |
| la morte-saison | the dead seasonthe off season | This expression often refers to fall, to describe both the weather and the low tourism, but can extend to winter. |
| la saison des soldes | the sales season | There are two main sales seasons, taking place over several weeks in January and July. |
| les vêtements de saison | the seasonal clothes | With the sales, comes seasonal fashion… |
| la saison d’une série | the season of a series | TV series also have their seasons, even in our age of instant streaming. |
Rather than the more generic saison, several phrases use the words of specific seasons in French:
| French | English | Meaning |
| été comme hiver | summer as winter | This phrase has the same meaning as en toute saison (in every season), to refer to something happening throughout the year or at any time of the year. |
| l’heure d’été | summer time | Just as in many other parts of the world, French people set their clocks forward one hour towards the start of spring. |
| l’heure d’hiver | winter time | With the return of fall and winter, French people also set their clocks back one hour. |
| les vacances d’été | summer holidays | Summer is the main season for holidays, with children being out of school throughout July and August. |
| les vacances d’hiver | winter holidays | With the ski season, Christmas and the New Year celebrations, the winter holidays are also very popular in France. |
| le tube de l’été | the summer hit | With the holiday season and music festivals throughout the country, a summer hit often tops the music charts. |
| l’hiver de la vie | the winter of life | This image refers to old age. |
| le printemps de la vie | the spring of life | This phrase refers to youth. |
| Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps. | one swallow does not a summer make | Even though the swallow mentioned in both the French and English saying is the same, the season is not. The French saying mentions spring, while the English one mentions summer. But the intended meaning is the same. |
There you have it: not just the words for the four seasons in French, but also a few grammar points to use them correctly in sentences, as well as a wealth of common turns of phrases and sayings. Through them, you even get an inkling of a year in the life of an average French person.
