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Vocabulary
Objective: Name public facilities in a French city, ask where they are located, and complete common administrative errands using the correct register.
| French | English | Common errand |
|---|---|---|
| la mairie | town hall | birth certificates, identity papers |
| la poste | post office | stamps, parcels, registered mail |
| la banque | bank | cash withdrawal, account opening |
| la bibliothèque | library | borrowing books, using computers |
| le commissariat | police station | filing a report, lost documents |
| l'hôpital | hospital | emergencies, appointments |
| la gare | train station | tickets, departures, arrivals |
| l'office de tourisme |
Mairie is feminine singular, so the preposition takes the feminine article à la. The contraction au applies only before masculine singular nouns.
The preposition à contracts with the masculine article le to produce au. The sequence à le is never correct in French.
Mairie is feminine, so it takes la. The polite formula s'il vous plaît is standard when asking a stranger.
Au coin contracts à and le. The noun coin is masculine.
Banque is feminine singular, so the preposition stays as à la without contraction.
Commissariat is masculine, so à and le contract to au. The building is the police station, while la police names the institution.
The vowel-initial hôpital takes the elided à l', never à la or au.
6 exercises · about 9 minutes
| tourist office |
| maps, local events, tickets |
Banque is feminine singular, so it takes the article la after the preposition à. A bare noun cannot follow à in this construction.
The standard everyday expression is la poste. The fuller form bureau de poste appears mainly in administrative and signpost contexts.
Près de takes the preposition de. The feminine noun gare keeps the article la without contraction.
The administrative phrase is fixed. The preposition de elides to d' before the vowel-initial acte.
Il faut is an impersonal expression that stays in the third-person singular. Prendre rendez-vous is a fixed phrase.