Discover the French sentence "Je viens de…"

Get prepared to learn all the things you ever wanted to know about the basic French sentence “Je viens de…”.

It includes a detailed explanation of what it is and how you can use it in a casual conversation with an audio example. And because we want you to learn efficiently, we also added some useful things like slow pronunciation audio, dialogue example and more!

Oh and in case you are interested, you can also find more sentences tutorials like this one on this page and the complete directory of all our French words content on this page. Wish you a good learning!

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French to English translation

Audio pronunciation

Slow pronunciation

Normal pronunciation

What does je viens de… mean?

Definition

“Je viens de…” is the most common way to say “I come from…” in French.

It’s very similar to “Je suis de…” which means “I am from…” in French.

How to use it

In French, there are different ways to ask “Where do you come from?“…

  • Tu viens d’où ? (Informal)
  • D’où viens-tu ? (Neutral)
  • Vous venez d’où ? (Formal)

Same thing for “Where are you from?“…

  • T’es d’où ? (Very informal)
  • Tu es d’où ? (Informal)
  • Vous êtes d’où ? (Formal)

So, if someone asks you one of the questions above, you can answer with one of these:

  • Je viens de + ville → I come from + city
  • Je viens de + pays → I come from + country
  • Je suis de + ville → I am from + city
  • Je suis + nationalité → I am + nationality
  • Je suis né à + ville → I was born in + city
  • Je suis né en + pays → I was born in + country

Choose one of them depending on the context. Which can sometimes be painful when you are born somewhere, but grew up somewhere else and are currently living in another place…

In this case, you have to decide which one represents you the most. And if you don’t know, you can always say: “Je suis un(e) citoyen(ne) du monde !” (I’m a citizen of the world!)

Finally, if you want to ask “and you?” you can add:

  • et toi ? → and you? (informal)
  • et vous ? → and you? (formal)

Example in a story with French audio

Now, let’s see a complete example of this sentence in a story with slow French audio and the English translation below.
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Je suis un homme Américain à Paris
I'm an American man in Paris
___
Encore une fois, Isabelle avait invité Joe à une soirée.
Once again, Isabelle had invited Joe to a party.
Cette fois-ci, Joe ne pouvait pas refuser… alors il accepta l’invitation.
This time, Joe couldn’t refuse… so he accepted the invitation.
Joe:   Tu veux que j’apporte quelque chose ? Du vin peut-être ?
Do you want me to bring something? Some wine maybe?
Isabelle sourit.
Isabelle smiled.
Isabelle:   Non, pas besoin. Apporte juste ton sourire et ta bonne humeur !
No need. Just bring your smile and your good mood!
Joe rit.
Joe laughed.
Joe:   Ça marche !
Alright!
Le moment venu, Joe sonna à la porte de l’appartement d’Isabelle…
When the time came, Joe rang the doorbell of Isabelle’s apartment…
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