Learn how to ask about a shop's opening hours
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Brandon: When Does this French Store Close? I’m Brandon! |
| Yasmine: Bonjour. I'm Yasmine. |
| Brandon: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to ask about about hours of operation of a business or store. The conversation takes place in a store. |
| Yasmine: It’s between David and Florent. |
| Brandon: The speakers are not friends, so they’ll be using formal French. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| David : Excusez-moi, à quelle heure le magasin ferme ce soir ? |
| Florent : À 20h00. |
| David : Et à quelle heure ouvrez-vous demain ? |
| Florent : Demain c'est dimanche donc nous sommes fermés. Nous ouvrons lundi à 8h00. |
| David : D'accord, merci ! |
| Brandon: Listen to the conversation one time slowly. |
| David : Excusez-moi, à quelle heure le magasin ferme ce soir ? |
| Florent : À 20h00. |
| David : Et à quelle heure ouvrez-vous demain ? |
| Florent : Demain c'est dimanche donc nous sommes fermés. Nous ouvrons lundi à 8h00. |
| David : D'accord, merci ! |
| Brandon: Listen to the conversation with an English translation. |
| David : Excusez-moi, à quelle heure le magasin ferme ce soir ? |
| Brandon: Excuse me, what time does the store close tonight? |
| Florent : À 20h00. |
| Brandon: At 8 pm. |
| David : Et à quelle heure ouvrez-vous demain ? |
| Brandon: And what time do you open in the morning? |
| Florent : Demain c'est dimanche donc nous sommes fermés. Nous ouvrons lundi à 8h00. |
| Brandon:Tomorrow is Sunday, so we’re closed. We open on Monday at 8 am. |
| David : D'accord, merci ! |
| Brandon: Ok, thank you! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Brandon: French stores aren’t usually open every day, right? |
| Yasmine: That’s right. Shops and restaurants are closed some days to give the employees some time off. |
| Brandon: It’s usually Sunday. For museums, it’s generally Monday or Tuesday, but stores may choose any day. |
| Yasmine: That’s right. And stores in a neighborhood often decide together who will close what day so that everything isn’t closed on the same day. |
| Brandon: What about the hours? Compared to countries like Japan or Canada, shops in France close early, right? |
| Yasmine: Yes. Plus they’re closed on Sundays! And you can't find a shop open at midnight. |
| Brandon: I have to say, that sounds quite inconvenient. |
| Yasmine: Well, we’re used to it! |
| Brandon: How can you ask about when a store will open or close? |
| Yasmine: You can use ouverture for “opening time” and fermeture for “closing time.” |
| Brandon: Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Brandon: The first word is.. |
| Yasmine: excuser [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: to excuse, to forgive, to pardon |
| Yasmine: excuser [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Yasmine: excuser [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: Next we have.. |
| Yasmine: magasin [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: store |
| Yasmine: magasin [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Yasmine: magasin [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: Next we have.. |
| Yasmine: fermer [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: to close |
| Yasmine: fermer [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Yasmine: fermer [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: Next we have.. |
| Yasmine: ouvrir [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: to open |
| Yasmine: ouvrir [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Yasmine: ouvrir [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: Next we have.. |
| Yasmine: demain [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: tomorrow |
| Yasmine: demain [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Yasmine: demain [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: Next we have.. |
| Yasmine: dimanche [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: Sunday |
| Yasmine: dimanche [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Yasmine: dimanche [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: Next we have.. |
| Yasmine: lundi [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: Monday |
| Yasmine: lundi [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Yasmine: lundi [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: last we have.. |
| Yasmine: fermé [natural native speed] |
| Brandon: closed |
| Yasmine: fermé [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Yasmine: fermé [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Brandon: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Yasmine: s’excuser |
| Brandon: which means "to apologise." |
| Yasmine: S'excuser is a pronominal verb. It must be conjugated with a reflexive pronoun- which is written “s” apostrophe, the shortened version of se, or “m” apostrophe, the shortened version of me. |
| Brandon: This is because the subject performing the action of the verb is the same as the object being acted upon. |
| Yasmine: That’s right. For example, Je m'excuse. |
| Brandon: “I apologise.” What else do we need to know? |
| Yasmine: S'excuser may require the preposition de in order for its meaning to be complete, but you don’t always need it. |
| Brandon: Can you give us an example? |
| Yasmine: Je m'excuse de vous déranger. |
| Brandon: “I apologize for interrupting you.” When would you not use this expression? |
| Yasmine: If you want to be very polite, you have to say présenter ses excuses. |
| Brandon: Literally this means "to present apologies." It's more formal. |
| Yasmine: For example, Je te présente mes excuses. |
| Brandon: “I apologise.” Can you give us a more complete example? |
| Yasmine: Sure! Je m'excuse d'avoir mis si longtemps à vous répondre. |
| Brandon: "I apologise for my late reply." Okay, next we have.. |
| Yasmine: Hier |
| Brandon: meaning “yesterday,” Let’s go over some other words describing relative time. First we have... |
| Yasmine: Aujourd'hui |
| Brandon: “today” |
| Yasmine: Demain |
| Brandon: “tomorrow” |
| Yasmine: Après-demain |
| Brandon: “the day after tomorrow" |
| Yasmine: Aujourd'hui comes from au + jour + de + hui. |
| Brandon: This translates to “on the day of today.” The phrase literally means "on the day of this day." It's a fixed expression. |
| Yasmine: You never use hui by itself in French. |
| Brandon: These time-related words will help you explain when something happens. For example... |
| Yasmine: Hier j'ai fait 3km de vélo, aujourd'hui de la marche et demain je vais à la montage. Après-demain je vais me reposer ! |
| Brandon: "Yesterday I rode 5km on my bike, today I walked, and tomorrow I will go to the mountains. The day after tomorrow I will rest!" Okay, now onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Brandon: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to ask about the hours of operation of a business or store. |
| Yasmine: In the dialogue, we had.. Et à quelle heure ouvrez-vous demain? |
| Brandon: meaning “And what time do you open in the morning?” It’s important to know when things open or close, so in this lesson, we'll introduce you to some phrases that will be very useful! We know you all want to see the sights in France, and these phrases are essential to plan your day. Let’s start with “what time does it open?” |
| Yasmine:In French that’s A quelle heure ça ouvre? The first word, à, means "at.” It is followed by quelle heure, which in French is "what hour.” |
| Brandon: You should remember these from previous lessons. Together the phrase means "at what time." |
| Yasmine: The next word is ça, which means "it." Finally, we have ouvre, which means "opens." So altogether we have A quelle heure ça ouvre? |
| Brandon: Literally, this means "At what hour it opens?" Even if you know when something opens, it’s also really important to know when places close! The worst thing to encounter is a ‘closed’ sign hanging in front of a place you wanted to see! How would we check the closing time? |
| Yasmine: In French "What time does it close?" is A quelle heure ça ferme? All we need to do is replace ouvre with ferme. |
| Brandon: So if you go to an attraction or shop, what should you say? |
| Yasmine: You can say A quelle heure ouvrez-vous ? |
| Brandon: "What time do you open?" |
| Yasmine: Or A quelle heure fermez-vous ? |
| Brandon: "What time do you close?" What if it’s something more specific? Like if you go to the theater and want to ask when the show starts? |
| Yasmine: "What time does the show start" in French is A quelle heure commence le spectacle ? You should recognize à quelle heure, followed by the verb commence. |
| Brandon: It means "start." |
| Yasmine: Then we have le spectacle, meaning "the show." A quelle heure commence le spectacle. |
| Brandon: Literally this means "At what time starts the show?" Trains are really common in France. How would we ask when the train leaves? |
| Yasmine: You can say A quelle heure part le train ? |
| Brandon: which means "What time does the train leave?" |
| Yasmine: The question still starts with à quelle heure. It is followed by the verb part, which means "leave" and le train, which is "the train." A quelle heure part le train ? |
| Brandon: Literally this means "At what time leaves the train?". So we made it on the train, how can we find out when we’ll get where we’re going? |
| Yasmine: Just ask A quelle heure on arrive ? |
| Brandon: which means "What time do we arrive?". |
| Yasmine: On arrive means "we arrive." |
Outro |
| Brandon: Well, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! |
| Yasmine: À bientôt! |
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