La nourriture et le marché (Food and the market)
Primary 5 · French
La nourriture et le marché (Food and the market)
Lesson 2 of 3
14 min
Let's begin
Gatete has one thousand francs folded up tight in his hand. His mother has sent him to the market for tomatoes, and he is walking fast so that he does not lose his courage.
He knows the word for tomato. But when the seller looks up and speaks to him in French, his mouth goes dry. What do you actually say?
Here is the good news. A market conversation is short, and it is nearly always the same four moves. Learn the four moves and you can buy anything, anywhere.
We will take them one at a time.
You never open with the food. You open with bonjour. In Rwanda you would never grab a tomato from an aunt at the market without greeting her first, and French feels exactly the same way.
She will often answer with: Vous désirez ? — What would you like?
Gatete wants a kilo of tomatoes. Here is his sentence:
Je voudrais un kilo de tomates, s'il vous plaît.
I would like a kilo of tomatoes, please.
Piece by piece:
There is another way to say it. Je veux means I want. It is not broken French — but in a market it lands like an order barked at someone, and no seller enjoys that. Je voudrais is the soft, polite one. Use je voudrais.
One more thing to be careful about. S'il vous plaît is for a grown-up or a stranger. To a friend of your own age you would say s'il te plaît. The woman selling tomatoes is not your classmate, so she gets s'il vous plaît — always.
Want to check she has something before you ask for it?
Vous avez des mangues ? — Do you have any mangoes?
The magic word is combien — how much. Once you own that word, you can ask the price of anything on earth.
The seller will answer with one of these:
And if the price makes your eyes go wide: C'est cher ! — That's expensive! Say it say SHAIR, and say it with a smile.
You already met the numbers up to twenty. Here they are again, quickly, so your mouth remembers them:
1 un, 2 deux, 3 trois, 4 quatre, 5 cinq, 6 six, 7 sept, 8 huit, 9 neuf, 10 dix, 11 onze, 12 douze, 13 treize, 14 quatorze, 15 quinze, 16 seize, 17 dix-sept, 18 dix-huit, 19 dix-neuf, 20 vingt.
| Number | French |
|---|---|
| 20 | vingt |
| 30 | trente |
| 40 | quarante |
| 50 | cinquante |
| 60 | soixante |
| 70 | soixante-dix |
| 80 | quatre-vingts |
| 90 | quatre-vingt-dix |
| 100 | cent |
Read 70, 80 and 90 again, slowly. Something odd is going on: French has started doing arithmetic in the middle of its numbers.
It is not a mistake and it is not a joke. It is really how French counts. Once you can see the little sums hiding inside the words, they stop being frightening.
Take the tens word, then add the units word behind it:
For 21, 31, 41, 51 and 61, French slips in the word et (and): vingt et un, trente et un, quarante et un.
And above 69 you keep counting using the teen words you already know:
Watch the spelling of 80. Quatre-vingts has an s when it stands alone, but that s vanishes the moment another number follows it: quatre-vingt-cinq, quatre-vingt-dix.
A mango does not cost 5 francs. To say a real Rwandan price you need two more words, and only two:
After that you simply read the number from the left, the same way you read it in maths:
Money is francs, and the word goes at the end: Ça fait mille deux cents francs.
Read this out loud twice. The second time, read it as Gatete.
Gatete : Bonjour, madame.
La vendeuse : Bonjour ! Vous désirez ?
Gatete : Je voudrais un kilo de tomates, s'il vous plaît.
La vendeuse : Voilà. Un kilo de tomates.
Gatete : C'est combien ?
La vendeuse : Ça fait huit cents francs.
Gatete : Voilà mille francs.
La vendeuse : Merci. Et voilà deux cents francs.
Gatete : Merci, madame. Au revoir !
Two new words slipped in there. Voilà means here you are — you say it every time you hand something over, whether it is tomatoes or money. And la vendeuse is the woman who sells (a man who sells is le vendeur).
Now check her maths, because you should always check the change. The tomatoes cost 800 Frw. Gatete handed over 1000 Frw. 1000 − 800 = 200, so she gives him back deux cents francs. The French says exactly what the numbers say.
Tip
Four moves, in this order
Bonjour → Je voudrais… → C'est combien ? → Voilà. Merci. Au revoir.
If you forget everything else in this lesson, keep C'est combien ? Those two words alone will get you the price of anything in any market in the world. Learn them tonight.
Say each one out loud, as if the seller were standing in front of you, then check the answer.
Ask for two pineapples, politely.
Answer: Je voudrais deux ananas, s'il vous plaît. (Je voudrais, not je veux — and vous, because she is a grown-up.)
Ask how much it is.
Answer: C'est combien ?
Say these numbers in French: 70, 85, 95.
Answer: soixante-dix (60 + 10), quatre-vingt-cinq (the s of quatre-vingts disappears when a number follows), quatre-vingt-quinze (80 + 15).
Uwase buys an avocado for 300 Frw and a bottle of water for 500 Frw. Say the total the way the seller would.
Answer: 300 + 500 = 800, so: « Ça fait huit cents francs. »
Ishimwe pays with 1000 Frw for something that costs 600 Frw. What change does he get, in French?
Answer: 1000 − 600 = 400, so he gets quatre cents francs.
You hand the money over. What is the one word you say?
Answer: Voilà.
What you learned today
Quick check
Put Gatete's four moves at the market in order.
Tap the cards in the right order.
