--- title: Food and drink — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Food and drink», a lesson of the french course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: French food words almost never stand alone: you like le pain (bread in general), but at the shop you ask for du pain (some bread). --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/) / Food and drink # Food and drink Lesson 18 of the french course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/french/18-food-and-drink/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/0/) — French food words almost never stand alone: you like le pain (bread in general), but at the shop you ask for du pain (some bread). - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/2/) — When you ask for some of something, use du, de la, de l' or des: du lait, de la confiture, de l'eau, des pommes. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/3/) — Picture a café in Calais: Charlotte orders des chips, expecting hot chips, and gets a bag of crisps, because in France hot chips are des frites. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/4/) — Food names often hide a little story: pain perdu, "lost bread", is French toast, made from old bread that is saved instead of thrown away. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/5/) — J'aime le pain means "I like bread"; after aimer, adorer, détester and préférer you use le, la, l' or les for things in general. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/6/) — "Some" is du (masculine), de la (feminine), de l' (before a vowel) or des (plural): Je voudrais du pain (I'd like some bread). - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/7/) — des frites are chips (French fries) and des chips are crisps. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/8/) — un pain au chocolat and une chocolatine are the same pastry; in the south-west of France many people say chocolatine, and people joke about which word is right. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/9/) — le fromage ("fro-MAZH") is cheese; France has hundreds of cheeses, and in a French meal cheese often comes after the main course and before dessert. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/10/) — Before a vowel sound, le and la lose their vowel: de l'eau (some water), l'orange. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/11/) — les escargots are snails cooked in garlic butter, a famous dish many French children eat only on special occasions; Non merci is a polite way to say no. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/12/) — After an amount French uses de: un kilo de pommes, une bouteille d'eau, un paquet de chips; kilo is masculine. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/13/) — une fraise is a strawberry, une framboise is a raspberry and une myrtille is a blueberry. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/14/) — le pain perdu ("lost bread") is French toast: old bread soaked in egg and milk and fried. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/15/) — Je n'aime pas les légumes means "I don't like vegetables": with like and dislike, les stays even after pas. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/16/) — In Brittany une crêpe is a thin, usually sweet pancake, and une galette is a buckwheat pancake, usually savoury, with ham, cheese or egg. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/18-food-and-drink/17/) — Slang here: "la" (Liverpool) means mate; "bare" (London) means lots of; "me mam" (Leeds) means my mum; "wicked" (Boston) means very; "proper lush" (West Country) means really lovely; "my lover" (West Country) means dear; "y'all" (Texas) means you all. - ← previous: [Clothes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/17-clothes/) - next →: [At the café: ordering in French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/19-at-the-cafe-ordering-in-french/) - ↑ back to [French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/)