French Jobs and Professions — je suis médecin, never un médecin

Someone asks what you do for a living, you translate from English, and out comes « je suis un professeur ». Every French ear winces. Job vocabulary is genuinely easy — most feminine forms follow three tidy patterns — but there’s one golden rule English speakers break daily. Let’s fix that first.

The golden rule: no article after être

In French, a profession after être behaves like an adjective, so the article disappears.

• Je suis médecin — I’m a doctor (never « je suis un médecin »)
• Elle est infirmière — she’s a nurse
• Ils sont développeurs — they’re developers

The article comes back after c’est, and it’s compulsory once you add an adjective: c’est un excellent médecin — he’s an excellent doctor. But « elle est une infirmière » is always wrong. Drop the un, sound French.

The regular pairs: -er, -eur and -teur

Three patterns cover most job names.

• -er → -ère: le boulanger / la boulangère — baker; l’infirmier / l’infirmière — nurse; le cuisinier / la cuisinière — cook
• -eur → -euse: le vendeur / la vendeuse — shop assistant; le serveur / la serveuse — waiter; le chanteur / la chanteuse — singer; le coiffeur / la coiffeuse — hairdresser
• -teur → -trice: l’acteur / l’actrice — actor; le traducteur / la traductrice — translator; le directeur / la directrice — manager, head

How do you know whether -teur takes -euse or -trice? If the t belongs to a verb (chanter → chanteur → chanteuse), it’s -euse; if not, -trice (acteur → actrice). When in doubt, -trice is the safer bet for formal professions.

The invariables (and the ones evolving)

A few classics historically had no feminine form. Usage is moving fast.

• le médecin — doctor: elle est médecin, full stop
• le professeur — teacher: la professeure is now official and increasingly common; everyday French just says prof
• l’ingénieur — engineer: ingénieure is on the same path
• le/la comptable — accountant: same word, only the article changes
• le/la journaliste — journalist: likewise

France officially embraced feminised titles in 2019 (Québec had been doing it for decades), so professeure and écrivaine (writer) are safe to use — and correct.

The modern jobs

• le développeur / la développeuse — developer
• le/la graphiste — graphic designer
• le/la community manager — social media manager (yes, French borrowed it wholesale)
• le/la freelance — freelancer: je suis freelance, or je travaille à mon compte — I’m self-employed

Asking the question like a human

Nobody says « quelle est votre profession ? » outside a tax form. In real life:

• Qu’est-ce que tu fais dans la vie ? — what do you do? (literally: in life) — the default question
• Tu travailles dans quoi ? — what field do you work in? Very common, very casual
• Vous faites quoi comme travail ? — what do you do for work? Polite but natural

Answer with je suis + job, or name the field: je travaille dans le marketing — I work in marketing.

Saying where you work

• à l’hôpital — at the hospital
• dans une entreprise — in a company
• dans un magasin — in a shop
• dans une école — in a school
• en télétravail — working from home: the post-2020 essential

Eight sentences to steal

• Je suis boulangère, je me lève à quatre heures. — I’m a baker, I get up at four.
• Mon frère est infirmier à l’hôpital. — my brother is a nurse at the hospital.
• Elle est développeuse dans une start-up. — she’s a developer in a start-up.
• Je travaille dans une entreprise à Lyon. — I work for a company in Lyon.
• Je suis en télétravail le vendredi. — I work from home on Fridays.
• Elle est médecin, c’est un métier difficile. — she’s a doctor; it’s a tough job.
• Je cherche du travail comme vendeuse. — I’m looking for work as a shop assistant.
• Et toi, qu’est-ce que tu fais dans la vie ? — and you, what do you do?

Gender, les métiers and the jobs that changed their spelling

Every profession in French carries gender, and the gender in French jobs vocabulary has been moving. The masculine form was long the default for prestige occupations; today the feminine forms are standard: la ministre, une autrice, une cheffe. Some métiers still use one form for both — un médecin, un pompier (firefighter) — though la pompière and la médecine-as-doctor keep gaining ground. A police officer is un policier / une policière — a regular pair, like the -er/-ère and -eur/-euse patterns above. When you learn French vocabulary for occupations, learn the pair, not the word: it is the same habit as learning le/la with nouns, and it saves you from guessing whether a masculine or feminine form exists. Traditionally the grammar followed society; now the spelling follows the workplace.

The other essential expression: asking about someone’s career. « Qu’est-ce que vous faites dans la vie ? » (what do you do in life?) is the natural question — French professions small talk never asks “what is your job” directly. Answer with the no-article rule from the top of this lesson: « je suis ingénieure », « je suis fondateur d’une start-up » (founder), never *je suis un ingénieur*. Use an article only when adding an adjective: « c’est un excellent professeur ». One rule, hundreds of common professions, no exceptions worth fearing — a rare gift from French grammar, and the reason jobs in french make ideal material for a beginner: the specialized vocabulary is new but the pattern never changes. From trade and craft words (un artisan, un menuisier) to different occupations of the modern state (fonctionnaire covers millions of French workers), the same skeleton holds every new vocabulary item you meet — whether you pick them up from a French video lesson with audio, a translation exercise, or the informal route of asking French people what they do. However you learn french online or in class, that structural sameness is why many professions can be absorbed in an afternoon: master the pattern for ten common French occupations in french, then let pronunciation practice and real conversations add the rest.

FAQ

What are the 7 types of occupations?

Career counsellors group les métiers into seven families: santé (health), éducation, commerce, technique/ingénierie, création, services publics, and agriculture. French vocabulary for each family shares suffixes — spot -eur, -ier, -iste and you can often guess the job.

How do you say profession in French?

« La profession » or, more commonly in speech, « le métier ». “What is your profession?” = « Quel est votre métier ? »

What is “your profession” in French translation?

« Votre profession » — on forms you’ll see exactly that word. Aloud, French prefers « Qu’est-ce que vous faites dans la vie ? »

Are professions masculine or feminine in French?

Both — the job takes the gender of the person doing it: un boulanger / une boulangère. A few remain officially invariable (un médecin), but usage is feminising them fast.

Why is it c’est un médecin but il est médecin?

After il est / elle est, the job works like an adjective — no article. After c’est, French needs a full noun phrase, so the article returns: c’est un médecin, c’est une excellente avocate. The full logic is in our lesson on c’est vs il est.

Is professeure really correct?

Yes. Québec feminised job titles decades ago, and France made it official in 2019. You’ll still meet old-school holdouts writing « madame le professeur » — smile, and carry on saying professeure.

How do I talk about my job in an interview?

Same rule, smarter packaging: je suis développeuse depuis cinq ans, je travaille dans la finance. For the vocabulary that gets you hired, head to the French job interview lesson.

Quick practice