French for your first 48 hours in France

Walk into a French shop, say nothing, and point at what you want, and the transaction still happens. It happens badly. Bonjour is the price of admission to every counter in the country, and the same question asked with it and without it gets two different afternoons. That is the shape of the first two days here: a handful of small ritual moves that cost you one word each and change how everybody treats you. This page runs the 48 hours in order, from the arrivals hall to the paperwork on day two, and puts the French for each stop beside it. The rows come from our French collection, 500 phrases we wrote and reviewed, with 188 of them in the six tables here, taken from the survive lane and the travel lane next to it.

Bonjour comes before the question

Bonjour. opens every exchange in France, and the note we put on that row says the rest: walking up to a counter without it reads as rude. Say it to the pharmacist, the bus driver, the person already in the lift. After late afternoon it becomes Bonsoir. and the send-off you get on the way out is Bonne journée. which wants merci, vous aussi back rather than silence.

Two apology words split a job English runs together. Pardon. is for bumping into somebody or squeezing past. Excusez-moi. is how you open a request to a stranger, and it also carries a real apology when you are late. Getting these the wrong way round is harmless, and getting them right makes you sound like somebody who has been here before.

Then the two rows that decide how the next ten minutes sound. Je parle un peu français. sets the level. Désolé, mon français n'est pas très bon. does more work than its translation suggests, because our note on it says people soften and slow down when they hear it. Keep Vous parlez anglais ? until after bonjour, never instead of it.

The repair kit for the moment you lose the thread

Most of day one is spent not quite catching things, so this lane is 24 rows of ways to ask again. Vous pouvez répéter, s'il vous plaît ? and Plus lentement, s'il vous plaît. are the two you will wear out. Ça s'écrit comment ? converts a name or a street you cannot hear into something you can read.

One row in the collection is built to be edited. Comment on dit « receipt » en français ? keeps the English word in the middle of a French frame, so you drop whatever you are missing into the quotation marks and the sentence still works. That is the trick worth stealing from this section: a frame you can reuse beats a phrase you can only say once.

Notice what the guillemets are doing there. French keeps the quotation marks and a space inside them, and the same spacing rule puts a gap before a question mark in Je peux vous aider ? Nobody will mark you down for typing it flat, and reading it is easier once you know the space is deliberate.

Out of the station: the quai, the composteur, the free seat

Platforms in France go up late. Il part de quel quai ? is a live question rather than something the ticket already answers, because the quai is announced roughly twenty minutes before departure and the board is where everybody is looking.

Il faut composter le billet ? is the fine-avoiding row. Paper tickets get stamped in the machine before you board and e-tickets do not, and regional lines are where the rule still bites. Ask for the right piece of card while you are at it: Un ticket, s'il vous plaît. covers bus, metro and tram, and a train needs a billet, so Un aller-retour pour Lyon, s'il vous plaît. is the shape for a longer trip.

Inside a packed metro carriage two short rows do all the social work. Vous descendez ? is what the person behind you asks before your stop, and the answer decides whether they push past you or wait. Cette place est libre ? asks whether the seat is free rather than whether it is taken, so oui means sit down. In a taxi, hold your phone up and say À cette adresse, s'il vous plaît.

A forfait, an eSIM, and the word engagement

Je voudrais une carte SIM. gets you to the counter and Un forfait avec internet, s'il vous plaît. describes what you want on it, since a forfait is the plan and data is la data or les gigas when anybody says it out loud. Ask Il y a combien de gigas ? for the allowance.

The word that costs money is engagement. C'est sans engagement ? asks whether you can cancel next month, and a plan avec engagement holds you for a year or two, which is the expensive half of a cheap headline price. Ask it before the paperwork, in the shop, out loud.

This lane also carries Vous avez une eSIM ? which our Spanish and Italian collections do not have. Landing with a profile already installed is now ordinary and the French list is the one that noticed. Once you are connected, the number you give out has its own rhythm: Mon numéro, c'est le 06 12 34 56 78. is read in pairs, zéro six, douze, trente-quatre, and every French mobile starts 06 or 07.

Cards, cash, and the shop that is open when everything else is shut

Où est le distributeur le plus proche ? uses the spoken word for a cash machine, while the sign above it says DAB. At the till, Je peux payer sans contact ? works up to fifty euros without a PIN, and Vous prenez la carte ? is worth asking in a small bakery or on a market stall, where a minimum spend is common. Take Le ticket de caisse, s'il vous plaît. and hang on to it, because a refund without it is usually an exchange.

A tabac is the most useful shop in France for somebody who has been in the country six hours. It sells stamps, transport tickets and phone top-ups, it is a parcel pickup point, and our note on Vous vendez des timbres ? says the thing that matters most: tabacs are open when everything else is shut. Which brings us to C'est ouvert le dimanche ? The answer in most of France is no, or mornings only, so Saturday is when the week's shopping happens.

One row is a polite exit rather than a question. Je vais réfléchir. means you are leaving without buying, everyone in the shop understands that, and nobody expects you back. Je regarde, merci. is the earlier version of the same move, and it ends the offer of help without ending the welcome.

The carafe, the carte, and the hours the kitchen keeps

Two French words point at things their English twins do not. La carte, s'il vous plaît. asks for the list of dishes, while le menu is the fixed-price set meal, so Vous avez un menu du jour ? is a separate question about the weekday deal chalked on a board outside. Then there is entrée. Comme entrée, la soupe. orders a starter here, and the same word means the main course on an American menu.

Water is free and you have to name it. Une carafe d'eau, s'il vous plaît. is tap water, which a restaurant owes you by law, and asking loosely for de l'eau can put a bottle on the bill instead. Beer measures follow the same logic: Un demi, s'il vous plaît. is a small glass at twenty-five centilitres, and a pint is une pinte. Coffee is smaller than you expect too, since Un café, s'il vous plaît. is an espresso.

Steak arrives bloodier than the English word suggests, so Saignant, s'il vous plaît. is a stronger request in France than rare is in Britain, and à point sits where medium-rare does. When nuts matter, Je suis allergique aux noix. needs a second sentence, because noix is strictly walnuts and tree nuts are fruits à coque.

The bill never comes on its own: L'addition, s'il vous plaît. or eye contact and a small air-scribble. Turn up at half past three hoping for lunch and you will meet Vous servez encore ? answered with non, because kitchens close in the afternoon and reopen in the evening.

The room, the door code, and the floor you are on

French buildings run on keypads. C'est quoi le code de la porte ? is the row for the digicode at street level, and for a rented flat the code usually arrives by text after the booking rather than from a person. A building with a code and no code in your phone is a bad half hour on a wet evening.

Count floors the British way. The ground floor is the rez-de-chaussée and the premier étage is one flight up, which is why a room number and a floor number rarely agree. In the room itself, La clim ne marche pas. is what everyone says about the air conditioning, with climatisation as the full word nobody bothers with.

If work is paying, ask for the right piece of paper. Je peux avoir une facture ? gets an invoice with the details an expenses system wants, while a reçu is only the card slip.

The pharmacy, and why the shelves look empty

French pharmacies keep the ordinary things behind the counter. Il me faut une ordonnance ? asks whether you need a prescription, and the answer for paracetamol is no, but you still have to ask a person for it. Say Je voudrais du paracétamol. or name the brand, since Doliprane is what the pharmacist reaches for.

After hours, Où est la pharmacie de garde ? finds the one on duty for the night or the Sunday, and the rota hangs on the door of every pharmacy in the area. If a doctor is involved, two rows are about money and paperwork rather than health. Je n'ai pas encore de carte Vitale. tells the desk you will be paying upfront and claiming later, and Il me faut un arrêt de travail. is the sick note, which you ask for before you leave the room and not by email afterwards.

15, 17, 18, 112, and the address they ask for first

France still uses separate numbers alongside the European one. 15 reaches the SAMU for a medical emergency, 17 the police, 18 the fire brigade, and 112 covers everything from any phone. Appelez une ambulance ! is what you say to whoever is nearest if your hands are busy, and C'est une urgence. is how the call starts.

The row worth rehearsing is the address, because the operator asks for it before anything else and French says it in an order English speakers get backwards. Je suis rue de Rivoli, au numéro 20. puts the street first and the number after it. Swap in your own street tonight and say it aloud twice. A theft ends somewhere calmer: Je voudrais porter plainte. is the report, and you can start it online and go in to sign, which halves the time you spend at the commissariat.

Day two: the guichet, the RIB and the proof you keep on your phone

French administration asks for the same two things every time. Vous avez un justificatif de domicile ? is proof of address, an electricity bill or a rent receipt, and the sensible move is a PDF of it on your phone before you need it a fourth time. Voici mon RIB. hands over your bank details, it is said reeb, and an employer, a landlord and a phone company will each want one, so print two.

Inside the building, C'est quel guichet ? is the question that saves the morning. You take a ticket from the machine first and the screen calls your number to a counter, and standing in the wrong place is how an hour disappears. Où est la mairie ? is worth knowing because the mairie and the préfecture do different jobs: school enrolment and lost property at one, residence permits at the other.

One number will not exist yet. Je n'ai pas encore de numéro de sécu. is a normal thing to say for weeks, because the 13-digit social security number arrives by post long after you apply. What the rest of the process looks like depends on your nationality and your contract and it changes, so check the current rules rather than this page. The row that ages best is Je voudrais résilier mon contrat. which works on a phone plan, a gym and a flat, and which you will need sooner than you think.

Where this list thins out

Our variety line for the French 500 says French of France, with Quebec noted only where the everyday word differs. That is an honest label for a real limit. A reader landing in Montreal, Brussels or Dakar gets a list pointed somewhere else, and the further from Paris the page travels the more of it is merely correct rather than useful.

The second limit is the gap between how these rows are written and how French comes back at you. Spoken French swallows sounds the written line keeps: il y a arrives as ya, je ne sais pas as chais pas, and half of what a tired ear misses is a vowel that was never said. Our rows are written the way you should say them. Nothing on this page teaches you to hear them.

Third, register. Every survive row here is vous, because a stranger at a counter is vous and that is the safe default on your first day. Colleagues your own age will often open in tu and the survive lane does not mark where that happens, so the first tu somebody offers you will arrive unannounced. Take it and use it back.

What we would add if we rebuilt the lane is the automated phone menu: the recorded voice that reads nine options at full speed before a human is possible. There is no row for it, and the repair kit does not help when there is nobody to repeat anything.

Making it stick

Read the section that matches tomorrow out loud tonight, twice. Silent reading feels like study and trains the wrong thing, because the failure at a counter is production under mild pressure and the fix is having said the words before.

After that, let the charger do the repetition. One entry plays each time the phone goes on to charge: the French, a pause, the English, a pause, the French again, given that the Shortcuts automation is set up and the platform allows the audio through. A weighted sampler chooses it and leans towards entries you have not heard for a while, which is a rotation rule rather than a claim about your memory. We wrote up why one word beats one lesson at that moment in One word per charge: why a lesson would fail.

Collections live on the site first and turn into app packs with text-to-speech audio later, with no date promised. The full set and the way we chose what went in are on The Vocabcord 500, and the whole French list, work lane and all, is The 500 French phrases you actually need.

Common questions

What is the first thing you should say in a French shop?

Bonjour, before the question. Bonjour. opens every exchange in France and skipping it reads as rude, so it comes before a request, a price question and even before Vous parlez anglais ? On the way out you will be given Bonne journée. and merci, vous aussi is the reply.

Is tap water free in French restaurants?

Yes, and you name it. Une carafe d'eau, s'il vous plaît. gets you a jug of tap water, which a restaurant owes you by law. Asking loosely for de l'eau can bring a bottle and a line on the bill. The other menu trap is the word carte: La carte, s'il vous plaît. is the list of dishes and le menu is the fixed-price set meal.

What is the emergency number in France?

112 works from any phone and reaches everything. France also keeps 15 for the SAMU medical service, 17 for the police and 18 for the fire brigade. Say C'est une urgence. to open the call, and give the address in French order, street then number, the way Je suis rue de Rivoli, au numéro 20. does.

How do you buy a SIM card or a phone plan in France?

Ask for Je voudrais une carte SIM. then Un forfait avec internet, s'il vous plaît. for a plan with data. The question that saves money is C'est sans engagement ? because a plan with engagement locks you in for a year or two. If your phone takes one, Vous avez une eSIM ? skips the counter queue entirely.