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The mental load

"La charge mentale"
French B2 writing exercise

Emma explains how the bulk of household organisational tasks tends to fall on women's shoulders.

Pay attention to the hints!

Some vocabulary you may want to look up before or during this exercise: "to juggle", "to supervise", "iron/ironing table", "unattended", "a (male) partner", "beyond", "an issue", "household chores", "mental load", "to leave stuff lying around", "to complain about [something]", "to assume".

Written by Qualified French Expert Aurélie Drouard HKH, Licence d'anglais LLCE
Last updated: 2023-01-12

I’ll give you some sentences to translate into French

  • I’ll show you where you make mistakes
  • I’ll keep track of what you need to practise
  • Change my choices if you want
Start the exercise
How the test works
You’ll practise: L'Imparfait (Indicatif), Le Présent (Indicatif), Le Passé Composé (Indicatif)

Here's a preview of the text for the writing challenge, when you're ready click the start button above:

As Emma was juggling with supervising the children's homework, preparing dinner and paying the rent, the iron, that she'd left unattended, burned the ironing table. And that's when her partner said: "You should have told me you needed help." If you're a woman living with a (male) partner, you will have recognised this situation. Beyond the issue of the unequal sharing of household chores, what we call "mental load" comprises all the things one has to think about so that the home can run smoothly. "I even tried leaving stuff lying around to see if he would start cleaning, but as I wasn't complaining about it any more, he just assumed that everything was fine."

Clever stuff happening!