How do you say dimensions in French — “de long” or “de longueur”?

Dialogue chez le marchand de meubles

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A1 French listening practice · French from France · Curated for beginners

💡 Did you know?
de long, de large, de haut
French measurement pattern
how French gives dimensions: 180 cm de long, not de longueur

To state a size, French puts the number first and then an adjective introduced by de: une table de 180 centimètres de long, 80 centimètres de large, 75 centimètres de haut. The adjective never agrees — it stays long, large, haut whatever the noun. The nouns longueur, largeur and hauteur exist too, but for a plain measurement the short adjective form is what people actually say.

The same slot takes other adjectives: deux mètres de profond (deep), trois centimètres d’épais (thick). Ask for the measurement and the sentence changes shape instead: quelle est la longueur ? or, as in this furniture-shop exchange, the very spoken c’est quoi, la longueur ? One more to pocket from the scene: une table extensible, an extendable table — the everyday word for one with a leaf.

Vocabulary frequency

How common is the vocabulary in this A1 French listening practice listening practice?

89.2%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common French words
Based on this reel’s transcript, most of the vocabulary is high-frequency, everyday French.

General French frequency

66.7%
Top 1,000
89.2%
Top 2,000
99%
Top 5,000

Spoken French frequency

80.9%
Top 1,000
95.5%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000
👄 Conversational vocabulary
This reel’s words appear more often in subtitle-based spoken-French data than in general usage, so it may feel closer to everyday conversation.

Words above this video’s level

Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s A1 level.

canapés
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
sofa, couch
extensible
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
extendable, fold-out
mh
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
hmm
largeur
1×
Top 5,000
width

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · Lexique 3.83 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.

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