La nourriture et le marché (Food and the market)
Primary 5 · French
La nourriture et le marché (Food and the market)
Lesson 1 of 3
12 min
Let's begin
It is Saturday morning at Kimironko market. Mutesi is carrying her mother's basket and trying not to lose her in the crowd.
Tomatoes are stacked in little red pyramids. A woman is shouting the price of avocados. Behind them, someone's radio is playing.
Mutesi knows every one of these foods in Kinyarwanda. She knows most of them in English. Today she learns them in French — and by the end of this lesson, so will you.
In French, a banana is une banane. Say it out loud: oon ba-NAN.
Look carefully at what you just said. There are two words there, not one. French hardly ever lets a food word stand alone — it comes holding hands with a small word in front of it.
Did you notice? Two of them use une, and two of them use un. Both of those little words mean the same thing in English: a.
Every French noun belongs to one of two families. We call the families masculine and feminine. It has nothing to do with boys and girls — a tomato is not a girl! It is simply the family the word was born into, hundreds of years ago.
You cannot look at a food and guess which family it is in. So do what French children do without even thinking about it: learn the little word as part of the word. Never learn banane. Learn une banane.
Watch this happen slowly, one step at a time.
Mutesi points at the pile of pineapples and says un ananas — a pineapple, any pineapple, it does not matter which one.
Now her mother picks one up. It is that pineapple, the one in her hand. Mutesi must now say the pineapple:
Now the same journey with a feminine word. une banane → banane is feminine → the feminine word for the is la → la banane. Banane begins with the consonant b, so nothing gets squeezed. Nothing to worry about.
Here is the rule you have just watched in action:
Nobody walks to the market to buy one single tomato. When there is more than one, two things change at the same time.
| One | Some | The (all of them) |
|---|---|---|
| un avocat | des avocats | les avocats |
| une tomate | des tomates | les tomates |
| une mangue | des mangues | les mangues |
The food word takes an -s, and the little word in front becomes des (some) or les (the).
Be careful with your ears here. That -s at the end is silent. Des tomates sounds like day to-MAT — you will never hear the s. Your ear cannot help you. Your eye must remember it.
Les fruits (the fruit):
| French | English | Say it like |
|---|---|---|
| une banane | a banana | ba-NAN |
| une mangue | a mango | MANG |
| un ananas | a pineapple | a-na-NA |
| un avocat | an avocado | a-vo-KA |
| une papaye | a papaya | pa-PAI |
| une orange | an orange | o-RANZH |
| une pomme | an apple | POM |
Les légumes (the vegetables):
| French | English | Say it like |
|---|---|---|
| une tomate | a tomato | to-MAT |
| un oignon | an onion | o-NYON |
| une carotte | a carrot | ka-ROT |
| un chou | a cabbage | SHOO |
| une pomme de terre | a potato | pom duh TAIR |
| une patate douce | a sweet potato | pa-tat DOOS |
| les haricots | beans | lay a-ree-KO |
| le manioc | cassava | ma-NYOK |
| le maïs | maize | ma-EES |
Dans la cuisine (in the kitchen) and à boire (to drink):
| French | English | Say it like |
|---|---|---|
| le riz | rice | REE |
| le pain | bread | PAN (through your nose) |
| la viande | meat | vee-AHND |
| le poisson | fish | pwa-SON |
| un œuf | an egg | un UHF |
| le lait | milk | LEH |
| le sucre | sugar | SOO-kruh |
| le sel | salt | SEL |
| l'eau | water | OH |
| le thé | tea | TAY |
| le jus | juice | ZHOO |
A funny one to enjoy: un œuf is said un UHF, but as soon as there is more than one, the f goes quiet — des œufs is said day-ZUH. Same word, different mouth.
Mutesi's mother wants a kilo of tomatoes. In French:
un kilo de tomates — a kilo of tomatoes
Look at what is not there. Not un kilo les tomates. Not un kilo des tomates. After the amount you use one small word, de, and then the food. Nothing else.
Mutesi looks into the basket on the way home and says what is inside:
Dans le panier, il y a une mangue, des haricots et un litre de lait.
In the basket, there is a mango, some beans and a litre of milk.
Take that sentence apart piece by piece, and every piece is something you already know:
Tip
Never learn a food word naked
When you write a new food word in your book, write the little word already stuck on the front: une tomate, un avocat, une mangue, le riz.
If you learn the word on its own, you will have to guess its family later — and you will guess wrong about half the time. Two words in, two words out. That is the whole trick.
Say each one out loud first, then check the answer.
Write a mango in French.
Answer: une mangue. (Mangue is feminine, so it takes une.)
Change une tomate into the tomato.
Answer: la tomate. (Feminine, and tomate starts with a consonant, so nothing is squeezed.)
Change un avocat into the avocado.
Answer: l'avocat. (Masculine, so it should be le — but avocat starts with the vowel a, so le squeezes down to l'.)
How do you say some bananas?
Answer: des bananes. (More than one: des in front, silent -s on the end.)
Say a kilo of rice in French.
Answer: un kilo de riz. (After an amount you use only de — no le, no des.)
Uwase puts a bottle of water and some beans in her bag. Finish her sentence: « Dans mon sac, il y a ___ et ___ . »
Answer: Dans mon sac, il y a une bouteille d'eau et des haricots.
What you learned today
Quick check
How do you say the pineapple? (un ananas)
