AtelierLe journal · French, understood
English

Language

The course

Updated

Real document

Every day except Monday: read a French cleaning rota

Edited by Chris Lee · Updated · About the library

Read a French household cleaning rota with tous les jours, le lundi and sauf lundi. Answer six questions about repeated tasks and the exception.

In short

Tous les jours sauf lundi means every day except Monday. Le lundi means on Mondays in this weekly rota. Read the exception with the task it modifies: the kitchen is cleaned six days a week, while the bathroom has its own Monday schedule.

Yellow the idea to rememberBlue French to learn

A bucket, spray bottle, cloth and scrubbing brush beside a kitchen and bathroom.
Attach sauf lundi to the kitchen task, then read each other task separately. Illustration: Atelier

Three housemates use a repeating weekly rota. Each line gives a task, a person and the days it happens. A phrase such as sauf lundi removes one day from that line; it does not cancel the other Monday tasks. Keep the task and its frequency together when answering the questions.

La colocation des Tilleuls

Notre ménage chaque semaine

Cuisine

Qui ?Nora

Quand ?Tous les jours sauf lundi

ActionNettoyer la cuisine

Salle de bains

Qui ?Sami

Quand ?Le lundi

ActionNettoyer la salle de bains

Poubelles

Qui ?Lina

Quand ?Le mardi et le vendredi

ActionSortir les poubelles

This rota repeats each week. The exception belongs to the kitchen line.
Question 1No account needed
On how many days each week does Nora clean the kitchen?

Choose one answer.

Answer and explanation

Six. Every day except Monday removes one of the seven days, leaving six.

Question 2No account needed
Which task is scheduled on Monday?

Choose one answer.

Answer and explanation

Cleaning the bathroom. The bathroom line says le lundi; the kitchen line specifically excludes Monday.

Question 3No account needed
Which tasks are scheduled on Tuesday?

Choose one answer.

Answer and explanation

Kitchen and bins. Tuesday is included in the kitchen’s six days, and the bins line explicitly names Tuesday.

Question 4No account needed
Are the bins scheduled for Thursday?

Choose one answer.

Answer and explanation

No, only Tuesday and Friday. Le mardi et le vendredi gives the two bin days; Thursday is not listed.

Question 5No account needed
Which task contains the Monday exception?

Choose one answer.

Answer and explanation

The kitchen. Sauf lundi appears in the kitchen section, so its scope is that task.

Question 6No account needed
What does le lundi mean in this repeating rota?

Choose one answer.

Answer and explanation

On Mondays. In this weekly schedule, le lundi expresses the repeated Monday occurrence.

The exception changes one line

If you stop reading after tous les jours, you miss the one day when the kitchen task is not scheduled. If you apply sauf lundi to the entire notice, you incorrectly remove Sami’s Monday bathroom task too. The section heading provides the boundary: Nora’s exception belongs to Cuisine, while Salle de bains has a separate frequency.

Read frequency phrases as complete units
FrenchMeaning
tous les joursevery day
tous les jours sauf lundievery day except Monday
le lundion Mondays
le mardi et le vendredion Tuesdays and Fridays

Et joins two included days. Sauf removes a day from a larger set. They therefore do different jobs: le mardi et le vendredi lists two occasions, while tous les jours sauf lundi starts with the whole week and excludes Monday. Both phrases repeat because the notice says chaque semaine.

Nora nettoie la cuisine le dimanche, mais pas le lundi.

Nora cleans the kitchen on Sundays, but not on Mondays.

To explain a rota aloud, begin with the person and action, then add the full frequency phrase. Nora nettoie la cuisine tous les jours sauf lundi keeps the exception close to the task. A listener can then repeat the correct days without having to reconstruct which line the exception belonged to.

Keep going