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Desk and office words in French

Last updated July 7, 2026 · 7 min read

40 desk and office words in French

These are the tools, stationery, and tech you'd find on a desk at school or at work — no rare or textbook-only vocabulary. The pronunciation column is a simple respelling, not IPA, so you can sound it out on sight.

Phrases you can actually say

A word list is more useful once it's inside a sentence. Here are eight short phrases built entirely from the table above:

1. Où est mon stylo ? — Where's my pen?
2. J'ai laissé mon carnet sur le bureau. — I left my notebook on the desk.
3. Le clavier ne marche pas. — The keyboard isn't working.
4. Peux-tu m'imprimer ce document ? — Can you print this document for me?
5. J'ai besoin d'écouteurs pour cet appel. — I need headphones for this call.
6. La souris est sans fil. — The mouse is wireless.
7. Range tes crayons dans le tiroir. — Put your pencils away in the drawer.
8. Mon téléphone est déchargé. — My phone is dead.

Catch them instead of memorizing them

A list like this one is a starting point, not a finish line. Vocabulary attached to an object you can actually touch sticks better than vocabulary studied off a page — that's the whole idea behind CatchFrase. Instead of memorizing le carnet from a table, you open the camera, point it at the notebook on your own desk, and get the word, its pronunciation, and an example sentence built around the actual object in front of you.

Every catch becomes a card in your collection: the word with its article, a phrase you can say out loud, and audio you can replay as many times as you want. Say it back, and CatchFrase transcribes your voice live, so you know whether le or la actually came out right — not a guess, an answer.

Here's the honest math: the free tier gives you 10 catches a day, so photographing a desk's worth of objects — the 40 words above — takes about four days of short sessions. Spaced review brings each word back before you'd forget it, so what you caught on day one is still there by day four.

Common questions

Will this help with French for work, not just school?

Yes — the words here, like bureau, imprimante, agenda, and dossier, are the same vocabulary used in a French office, so this list works whether you're prepping for a classroom or a workplace.

What if my desk doesn't have all 40 objects?

That's fine — this list is a reference, not a checklist. CatchFrase only asks you to catch what's actually in front of you, so your collection reflects your real desk, not a generic one.

Is it really free to build this vocabulary?

The free tier includes 10 catches a day, a 75-card collection, and daily review — enough to work through a desk's worth of words in a couple of sessions. CatchFrase Plus adds unlimited catches and deeper practice.