entendre vs écouter

Summary

entendre means "to hear" — the passive perception of sound that reaches your ears — while écouter means "to listen to" — the deliberate act of paying attention. Both are directly transitive: you écouter someone, never *écouter à.

Explanation

French divides English "hear/listen" into two verbs along the line of intention, exactly as it splits voir / regarder for the eyes. entendre is perception: sound reaches your ears whether you wanted it to or not. écouter is attention: you deliberately tune in and follow the sound. English "hear" sometimes leans toward "listen" ("I heard a great talk"), but French keeps the two apart.

Use entendre for sound you simply perceive: J'entends du bruit (I hear a noise), On entend la mer d'ici (you can hear the sea from here), Je n'ai rien entendu (I heard nothing). It is involuntary and result-oriented — the sound registered — and often appears with things you did not choose to attend to.

Use écouter for the deliberate activity of listening: J'écoute de la musique (I'm listening to music), Écoute-moi (listen to me), Elle écoute la radio tous les matins (she listens to the radio every morning). It describes directing and holding your attention, so it fits ongoing activities and imperatives that ask someone to pay attention.

Grammar matters: écouter is directly transitive. You listen to something with no preposition — écouter la radio, écouter quelqu'un — never *écouter à la radio. English "listen to" tempts learners to add à, but that is wrong. (entendre is likewise directly transitive: entendre un bruit.) Note two extra meanings: the pronominal s'entendre (avec) means "to get along (with someone)" — Ils s'entendent bien — and in more formal or idiomatic use entendre can mean "to understand" (bien entendu = of course; j'entends par là = by that I mean).

The traps for English speakers mirror the voir/regarder ones. First, using entendre when attention is meant: to listen to music or the radio you need écouter, not *entendre la musique (which would just mean the sound reaches you). Second, inserting a preposition: *j'écoute à la radio instead of j'écoute la radio. Third, missing s'entendre avec ("get along") and reading it literally as "hear each other".

Rule of thumb: if the sound just arrives at your ears, use entendre; if you deliberately pay attention to it, use écouter — and attach its object directly, with no à.

Examples

J'entends du bruit dans la rue. — I hear a noise in the street. (Passive perception of sound -> entendre.)

Le matin, j'écoute la radio. — In the morning I listen to the radio. (Deliberate listening; object attached with no preposition (never *écouter à).)

Écoute-moi bien. — Listen to me carefully. (Imperative asking for attention -> écouter.)

On entend la mer d'ici. — You can hear the sea from here. (Ability to perceive sound -> entendre.)

Ils s'entendent très bien. — They get along very well. (Pronominal s'entendre (avec) = get along, not literal hearing.)

Je n'écoute pas cette chanson, je la trouve triste. — I don't listen to that song, I find it sad. (Chosen attention to a specific piece -> écouter.)

Common mistakes

Related rules

• voir vs regarder
• Prepositions à and de
• Pronominal (reflexive) verbs