Key Stage 2 languages · Describing

KS2 languages: describing places, things and actions

In Key Stage 2, children learn to say and write what places and things are like, and what is happening, in the language their school teaches. They start with single words and short phrases such as “a big house” or “the cat is sleeping”, then build simple sentences from vocabulary and patterns they know well. The aim is confident, accurate description, spoken first and then written down.

Describing places, things and actions, explained

Each primary school chooses the language it teaches. Many choose a modern language such as French, Spanish or German, and some teach an ancient language such as Latin, where the focus is on reading and writing rather than speaking. Whichever language it is, the national curriculum asks the same thing at this point: children should be able to describe people, places, things and actions, out loud and in writing, and to speak in sentences using familiar words, phrases and basic structures. The examples on this page use French and Spanish.

Describing a place or a thing usually needs three ingredients: a noun (maison or casa), a verb such as est or es (is), or a fixed phrase such as il y a or hay (there is), and an adjective or phrase that adds detail (grande, or “near the park”). In class, children begin with words and phrases, supported by pictures, songs and games. They are then shown a model sentence such as “Ma maison est grande” (my house is big) and learn to swap the parts: a different noun, a different adjective, a different colour. “Il y a un jardin” and “Hay un jardín” both mean “there is a garden”, and children meet them as ready-made phrases long before they take them apart.

Describing actions means using verbs. Early on, children usually learn actions as whole chunks: “Mon chat dort” (my cat is sleeping), “Je joue dans le jardin” (I play in the garden), “Mi perro corre” (my dog runs). The curriculum asks for familiar vocabulary and basic structures, not for children to invent new sentences from rules alone. Verb endings are taught in a separate strand of grammar, so it is normal for a child to know that “dort” goes with “mon chat” without yet being able to explain why.

Speaking comes before writing. Children say sentences in pairs, in games and in short performances, then write them down, often with a sentence frame to complete. Writing in another language also means paying attention to spelling and accents, which are part of the word and cannot be skipped: habitación needs its accent, and maison is not spelled the way it sounds to an English ear. A typical goal by the end of the key stage is a short description of a bedroom, a town or a favourite animal, written in a few sentences with a word list to help.

Words your child will hear

Noun: A naming word for a person, place or thing, such as chat (cat) or casa (house).
Adjective: A describing word, such as grande (big) or blanche (white).
Verb: A doing or being word, such as dort (sleeps) or es (is).
Agreement: Making an adjective match its noun, as in un chat blanc but une maison blanche.
Phrase: A short group of words that works as one piece, such as il y a or hay (there is).
Sentence frame: A model sentence with gaps, such as “Mon ___ est ___”, which children fill in.
Connective: A joining word such as et or y (and), used to link two ideas.

What the National Curriculum says

In Key Stage 2, pupils should be taught to:

Describe people, places, things and actions orally* and in writing
Speak in sentences, using familiar vocabulary, phrases and basic language structures

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: describing your bedroom

Describe a bedroom in four sentences in French or Spanish, starting from a model sentence and swapping the parts.

Start with a model that is already known: “Ma chambre est petite” in French, or “Mi habitación es pequeña” in Spanish. Both mean “My bedroom is small.” The parts are: my, bedroom, is, small.
Swap one part at a time and check the adjective matches its noun. Chambre is feminine, so the French adjective is petite. Swap in a masculine noun and a colour and you get “Le lit est bleu” (the bed is blue). In Spanish, habitación is feminine, so pequeña; “La cama es azul” works for any noun because azul keeps the same form for masculine and feminine.
Say what is in the room, using the fixed phrase for “there is” or “there are”: “Il y a un lit et un bureau” or “Hay una cama y un escritorio”. The small joining word et (or y) links the two things.
Add an action: “Je lis dans ma chambre” or “Leo en mi habitación” (I read in my bedroom). This is a chunk children can learn whole.
Say the four sentences aloud, then check each one for the verb, the matching adjective and any accents before writing it down.

French: “Ma chambre est petite. Il y a un lit et un bureau. Le lit est bleu. Je lis dans ma chambre.” Spanish: “Mi habitación es pequeña. Hay una cama y un escritorio. La cama es azul. Leo en mi habitación.”

Common mistakes and how to help

Putting the adjective where it would go in English, as in “un noir chat”

Children translate word for word, so “black cat” becomes noir chat. In French and Spanish, many describing words, including colours, come after the noun.

What helps: Teach noun and adjective as one chunk: un chat noir, un gato negro. A few short, common French adjectives such as petit and grand usually come before the noun (une petite maison), so learn those as chunks too rather than as a rule.

Not making the adjective match, as in “une maison blanc”

A word list shows only the masculine form, so that is the one children copy. They may not yet notice that the noun has a gender that the adjective follows.

What helps: Check the noun first. Many French adjectives add an -e for a feminine noun (vert, verte), and many Spanish adjectives change -o to -a (negro, negra). A few French ones change more than that, such as blanc becoming blanche, so learn those as pairs. Some, such as rouge in French and verde in Spanish, do not change for gender at all, which is worth saying so children do not over-correct.

Leaving out the verb: “Ma maison grande”

In English we happily say “my big house” as a label, so the missing “is” does not feel like a gap. The other language needs est or es to make a full sentence.

What helps: Ask “where is the is?” before writing. A simple habit is to underline the noun, the verb and the adjective in every sentence.

Translating “there is” and “there are” word for word

Children put together words they know, producing something like “il est un jardin” or “hay es un jardín”.

What helps: Treat il y a and hay as single units that stay the same for one thing or several: il y a un chat, il y a deux chats; hay un gato, hay dos gatos. Practise them as a pair of fixed phrases, not as separate words.

How to help at home

Describe what you can see. Pick an object in the room and ask your child to say one thing about it in the language they are learning, such as its colour or size. Take turns, and accept short answers: a correct phrase beats a long sentence with gaps.
Swap one word at a time. Write a model sentence from school on a piece of paper and change one word each round: a new noun, then a new adjective, then a new colour. Read each new version aloud, and let your child spot which words had to change to match.
Draw it, then describe it. Ask your child to draw a house, a monster or a favourite animal, then describe it in a few sentences. Cheap and quick, it gives them a real reason to use the words and something to show you.
Act out the actions. Play charades with the verbs your child knows, such as sleeps, eats, runs and reads. The person guessing has to say the whole sentence in the language, for example “Le chat dort” or “El gato duerme”.
Let them teach you. Explaining a sentence to someone else shows what a child really knows. Ask them to tell you what each word means and why an ending changed, even if you have never studied the language.