112 - How to Say Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner in French

 
 

In this episode, you'll learn how to say essential French words like “breakfast,” “lunch,” and “dinner.”

If you’d prefer to listen on the go, listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Links & Cheat Sheet

Transcript

Intro: Welcome to the French Made Easy podcast, where I give you all the basics you need to speak French clearly and confidently. I'm your host, Mathilde, and I'm a French teacher, mumpreneur, and bread and cheese lover. Join me as I dive into all things French for beginners, and deliver to you bite-sized and easy-to-follow lessons every Tuesday. Let's get started, "on commence"!

Hello everyone! Bonjour à tous! Welcome back to the French Made Easy podcast. This is episode number 112, numéro 112!

In this episode, I'll teach you different meal names, such as breakfast, lunch, and dinner in French, and I'll give you example sentences using these words. 

As always, make sure you have your lesson's cheat sheet handy, so you can see the words as you listen. And after you've listened to the lesson, head over to the FME Exercise Library to access today's exercises and practice your new vocabulary. You can access the links from the episode notes on your podcast platform.

  • Le petit-déjeuner (breakfast) / petit-déjeuner* (to have breakfast)

→ Au petit-déjeuner, il mange du pain avec du beurre et il boit un café. (For breakfast, he eats bread with butter and drinks coffee.)

  • Le déjeuner (lunch) / déjeuner* (to have lunch)

→ Je vais déjeuner avec mes amis demain vers 13 h 00. (I'm going to have lunch with my friends tomorrow around 1 o'clock.)

  • Le goûter (tea-time) / goûter* (to have tea-time)

→ Les enfants prennent leur goûter après l'école. (Children have their tea-time after school.)

  • Le dîner (dinner) / dîner* (to have dinner)

→ Elle n'a pas terminé son dîner. (She did not finish her dinner.)

  • Un encas (a snack, throughout the day)

→ On mange souvent un encas après notre cours de sport. (We often eat a snack after our workout.)

I know that many of you are learning French to move to Quebec, so it's worth noting that Canadian French has some differences in terms of meal names compared to standard French. As you know, I'm not Canadian, so I cannot teach you about these differences, but I remember noticing some variations when I traveled to Canada, about 15 years ago. If you are learning French to live in Canada, I recommend researching online to double-check these differences.

A quick recap':

  • Le petit-déjeuner (breakfast)

  • Le déjeuner (lunch)

  • Le goûter (tea-time)

  • Le dîner (dinner)

  • Un encas (a snack, throughout the day)

📌*I forgot to tell you something, so I'll add it here.

Le petit-dejeuner le déjeuner, le goûter et le dîner are nouns. But they also exist as verbs. So you can also conjugate the verbs petit-déjeuner, déjeuner, goûter and diner. So you can say “je petit-déjeune” , “je déjeune”, “je goûte”, “je dîne”, etc.

That's all for today's episode. I hope you found it helpful! Don't forget to check out the French Made Easy Library for practice. I'll chat with you in the next lesson. À bientôt ! 💕

Mathilde KienComment