How do you say "attend" in French?

Question

What word in French would you use for attend, in the sense "attend the class"? Attendre seems to mean to wait; dictionary offers:

visiter
fréquenter
hanter
s'approcher

but I guess only some of them are normally used in this context?

Related, but different: http://french.stackexchange.com/questions/4528/to-attend-a-school-to-take-a-class — Stéphane Gimenez, Jun 06 '13 at 13:55

score 15 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 06 '13 at 13:56

15

I would have used none of them. To be exact, my usual translation of “to attend a class” is “assister à un cours”.

edited Jun 06 '13 at 13:56

Stéphane Gimenez

answered Jun 06 '13 at 13:50

Caramel Truffle

strange... in the dictionary, I find that assister means to help or support. But true, google translate offers the same. Thanks! – Tomas Jun 06 '13 at 13:56
1

@Tomas You're right, to help/support is the first meaning of the word. I can only suggest wordreference as a better reference though. – Caramel Truffle Jun 06 '13 at 14:02
4

@Tomas Assister has different meanings. – Zistoloen Jun 06 '13 at 14:04
3

@Tomas, "assister à qqch" means attend something or be present when something occurs, "assister qqun" mean help or support someone. – Un francophone Jun 06 '13 at 15:41

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 06 '13 at 14:07

12

You could also use the word suivre.

Twice a week she attends French classes. Deux fois par semaines elle suit des cours de français.

answered Jun 06 '13 at 14:07

Valram

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 07 '13 at 08:34

4

In the context of an active attendance, participer is suitable.

I will attend this meeting. Je participerai à cette réunion.

answered Jun 07 '13 at 08:34

Shlublu

As for the future tense, I've heard it is not used much in spoken word. So isn't it more common to say Je vais participer à cette réunion? – Tomas Jun 07 '13 at 09:21
I see you live in Paris, are you a native speaker? Sorry for this question, but there's no other way of getting the information. I think for the purpose of this site the native language information of a user should be available the profile. – Tomas Jun 07 '13 at 09:24
"Je participerai" is a (little) bit more formal than "je vais participer" but you can use it when speaking. I do, actually :) – Shlublu Jun 07 '13 at 09:26
I'm just discovering your second comment. Yes, I am french. "Français 2nde langue", in my profile, is just a joke. And you are absolutely right, the native language information is more than useful. The location too. – Shlublu Jun 07 '13 at 09:28

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 08 '13 at 11:57

To follow up on the 3 "correct" answers, there are some differences in the 3 proposed translations

assister à un cours : you are going to attend the class at a specific date. It not mean that you are attending the class for a whole semester.
suivre un cours : here you are attending the class which lasts for several sessions
participer à un cours / prendre part à un cours : as @Shlublu noted, active attendance is implied. Nothing implied about the number of sessions.

Then you make it a fourth good answer.... +1 to all! – Romain Valeri Jun 09 '13 at 11:05 — Romain Valeri, Jun 09 '13 at 11:05

4 Answers4