/lavəniʁ apaʁtjɛ̃ a sø ki sə lɛv to/ lit. ‘the future belongs to early risers’
French idiom, everyday. People who get up or get started early are the ones who get the best chances.
Draft Not yet checked by a native French speaker.
How do people use L’avenir appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt
?
A proverb that parents, teachers and bosses use to get people out of bed, usually half joking. It’s a fixed sentence, so the verb stays in the present even when you tell a story in the past; you just quote it. People love to twist it, and French Wiktionary quotes a novel that adds “à moi la belle vie !” after it, as if waking up early were a ticket to an easy life.
Also said le monde appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt
L’avenir appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt
in real sentences
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L’avenir appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt.
The early bird catches the worm.
Tatoeba, sentence by TRANG, translation by al_ex_an_der, CC BY 2.0 FR
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« Allez ! Debout ! Hop, hop, hop ! L’avenir appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt ! » « L’avenir peut aller se faire voir ailleurs ! »
“Come on! Get up! Chop chop! The early bird catches the worm!” “The early bird can do one!”
Tatoeba, sentence by Micsmithel, translation by sundown, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does L’avenir appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt
come from?
French Wiktionary says the saying dates from the 19th century and credits it to the writer Henry Gauthier-Villars, known as Willy, with Jules Renard picking it up later. Its only source for that is a blog post by a sleep-technology company, so treat the attribution as unconfirmed. The same page suggests it made sense in a world without much electric light, when people who rose with the sun got more done, but that is an explanation, not a record. We found no earlier dated use.
Mistakes learners make with L’avenir appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt
Writing “se lève” in the singular. “Ceux qui” (those who) is plural, so the verb is “se lèvent”, even though both forms sound exactly the same.
Other French idioms like L’avenir appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt
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