What is the song about?

Every morning, the person singing wonders what to wear. They look out the window and choose their clothes according to the weather: a T-shirt and sunglasses when the weather is nice, a jacket, boots, and an umbrella when it rains, a coat, a scarf, and a beanie when it snows. At the end, they get ready in front of the mirror for a big party.

Useful vocabulary

Clothing and accessories

  • un t-shirt, un pantalon, un pull, une robe
  • une veste, un manteau, une écharpe, des gants, un bonnet
  • des bottes de pluie, des chaussures, des lunettes de soleil
  • un parapluie, une montre, des accessoires
  • une tenue: the set of clothes that you wear
  • une armoire: the piece of furniture where you store your clothes
The weather
  • le soleil luit, le ciel est bleu
  • les nuages arrivent, il pleut beaucoup
  • le vent est glacé, la neige tombe

Expressions

  • chercher en vain: to search without finding
  • braver le temps: to face bad weather
  • prendre son temps: not to hurry
  • se mettre sur son trente-et-un: to dress very elegantly, for a special occasion
  • plus de problème: there is no longer any problem (plus is pronounced without the s)

Grammar

  • Near future with inversion: Que vais-je mettre ? is a formal question. In spoken French, people usually say Qu'est-ce que je vais mettre ? or Je vais mettre quoi ?
  • The verb mettre in the present tense: je mets, tu mets, il met. With an object pronoun, the pronoun is placed before the verb: je cherche ma veste et la mets.
  • Materials with “en”: des gants en laine, une montre en or.
  • Adjective placement: most adjectives follow the noun (une écharpe rouge, un manteau chaud), but some short ones go before it (une belle robe, la grande fête).
  • Indefinite articles: un pantalon, une robe, des bottes.

Note: phrasing chosen for the rhyme

  • Je cherche ma veste et la mets au cou: you do not put a jacket “au cou” (around the neck—that is where you put a scarf or a necklace). Simply say je la mets or je l'enfile.
  • La neige descend: in everyday French, people say la neige tombe.
  • Le soleil luit: this is correct but literary; in everyday life, people say le soleil brille.
  • Le style parfait sur tout le globe: a slightly artificial phrasing to rhyme with robe; you would rather say dans le monde entier.
  • Une montre en or pour briller la nuit: a poetic image for the rhyme, not a sentence to reuse as is.