descendre (de…)
Get off in French, meaning to leave a bus, train or other vehicle, is descendre (de…).
Use descendre de plus the vehicle you are leaving.
Meaning: (''ambitransitive'') to disembark from (verb)
Which one should you use?
The opposite, to get on, is monter dans.
How does it change in a sentence?
In this sense descendre takes no direct object. To say what you get off, add de, which joins with the article le to make du.
What mistakes should you avoid?
Do not say descendre le bus for getting off the bus. Put de before the vehicle.
Did you know?
- In a casual or slang context, descendre can mean to 'take someone down' or murder them. This violent usage is entirely different from the polite act of getting off a bus.
- If you forget the word de and say descendre le bus, a French speaker might imagine you are using a crane to physically lower the entire bus to the ground.
- In French, the same verb descendre is used whether you are getting off a train or simply walking down the stairs of an apartment building.
Examples in context
- Pardon, madame, où puis-je descendre pour aller à la gare?Excuse me, ma'am, where can I get off to go to the train station?
- Nous allons débarquer à Marseille dans quelques minutes.We will be disembarking in Marseille in a few minutes.
- Il vous suffit de sortir à la prochaine station.You just need to get off at the next stop.
- Je descends à la prochaine station. On se retrouve plus tard!I'm getting off at the next stop. See you later!
- Je descends du bus.I am getting off the bus.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “get off” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
