subject: Learn To Read French - And Grab Yourself A Caf! [print this page] So you would like to learn to read French? Well bonjour, comment allez-vous? In case you don't know, that's "hello, how are you?". You'll have to forgive me if I go over some things you know but if you're starting to learn basic French you wouldn't want to miss anything important - and there aren't many better places to begin than saying hello!
There are lots of sites you can start learning French for free online and all kinds of different approaches. Mine is to pick on a theme and try to give some related French phrases. I hope this makes it more interesting and that it helps you absorb what you need. We always learn French faster if we're having a bit of fun.
So for this short lesson let's look at something most of us enjoy visiting - the French street caf.
"Caf" is the place and also the drink - coffee. Of course a French caf usually serves much more than "une tasse de caf" (a cup of coffee). You can also get une bire (a beer) and usually quelque chose manger (something to eat).
As part of this exercise helping you learn to read French, you'll probably want to know how to actually ask for these things. You can do it in two ways. The first, very polite, is "Je voudrais..." which means I would like. It's the kind of thing you see in a lot of French books. "Je voudrais un caf, s'il vous plat" - "I would like a coffee please".
"Je voudrais..." is a really useful French phrase. A very polite way to ask for things. In reality, when you're in a street caf in France, there's no need to be quite that formal. When someone comes to your table to take your order, "un caf, s'il vous plat" is quite polite enough - "a coffee, please". Don't be surprised if the waiter ("server" in French, never say "garon") or waitress ("serveuse") repetas it back to you. They aren't usually saying they don't understand, they're just making sure they got the order right.
So how would you ask "do you have?" There are a couple of ways. "Est-ce qu'il y a...?" literally means "Are there any...?", which is a common way to ask for something in French. "Est-ce que vous-avez...?" means "Do you have any...?", which is equally common. Often this is shortened in every-day French to "Avez-vous...?". It's perfectly acceptable to use the short version a lot of the time. How do you know when each is right? Well it's not really something to worry about, but think about how you would ask if you were in the same situation in English. Should you be more formal - use the longer version - or is the situation more casual?
So, back to our situation. "Avez-vous quelque chose manger?" means "Do you have anything to eat?". If you are in a French caf or bar that clearly does food, you can just ask for the menu: "le menu, s'il vous plat". Sometimes they might not have a menu. You might get told "tous nos plats sont sur l'ardoise" which means "all our dishes are on the slate - or blackboard".
We could probably go on forever with easy French phrases related to cafs and bars. I hope that gives you enough of a flavor to want to find out more. It might get just a little more complicated, but as you learn to read French using modern teaching methods you'll pick up patterns and the whole thing will fall into place surprisingly quickly.
