Places in Town in French: 80 Words for Getting Around

Places in town are the vocabulary you need the moment you step off the train. You need them to ask where something is, to understand the answer, and to tell a taxi driver where you are going. And unlike most word lists, you will usually be saying these to a stranger, out loud, with no time to look anything up.

So this is the full set — more than 90 places, grouped the way a town is actually laid out — plus the one grammar rule that every sentence about places depends on, and the words whose spelling will lead you astray.

Learn each word with its article: la banque, le marché, l'hôpital (m). The article is not decoration. It decides whether you say à la, au or à l' when you ask the way, and that is the first thing a listener hears.

La ville — the town itself

The false friend to fix first: la place. Une place in a French town is a square — la place de la Concorde. It also means a seat or a parking space. It almost never means "a place" in the English sense. For "a nice place to eat", say un endroit sympa pour manger.

Les rues — streets, roads and getting around

La rue is the one to say out loud now. It is one short syllable, and English speakers almost always turn it into roux [ʁu] — which is a hair colour. If you only fix one vowel on this page, fix this one.

Les magasins — shops and food

The false friend that costs people an afternoon: la librairie. A librairie sells books. A library, where you borrow them, is a bibliothèque. Asking a passer-by for la librairie when you want somewhere quiet to work will get you pointed, very helpfully, at a shop.

Les services — services and public buildings

The other false friend: l'hôtel de ville. It is the city hall, not a hotel. And un hôtel particulier is a grand private townhouse. When you want a bed for the night, un hôtel on its own is fine — it is only the compounds that mislead.

L'école et la culture — education, culture and leisure

Le collège is the one that trips English speakers most in conversation. If someone tells you their daughter is au collège, she is about twelve.

Dormir — where to stay

The rule every place sentence runs on: à + the article

To say "to the …" or "at the …", French uses à, and à fuses with the article. This one table is behind almost every direction you will ask or be given:

À le and à les never appear. Say à le marché and a French listener hears a textbook error immediately; say au marché and nobody notices anything at all. That is why the gender is worth learning with the word: you cannot choose between au and à la without it.

The same fusion happens with de — "from the" or "of the": du marché, de la banque, de l'hôpital, des magasins. And for a shop named after a person, French uses chez: chez le boulanger, chez le médecin — literally "at the baker's".

Asking the way

Five sentences that get you anywhere. Say each one out loud instead of reading it.

• Excusez-moi, où est la gare ? — Excusez-moi opens every one of these. Skipping it is rude, not efficient.
• Il y a une pharmacie près d'ici ? — [i.lja] — il y a collapses to two syllables.
• C'est loin, le musée ? — French puts the topic at the end in speech.
• Pour aller au centre-ville, s'il vous plaît ? — pour aller à + place is the standard way to ask the route.
• C'est au coin de la rue. — the answer you will hear most. Au coin links: [o·kwɛ̃].

And the three directions you need to understand back: tout droit (straight on), à gauche (left), à droite (right). Droit and droite differ only by a final [t] — tout droit [tu.dʁwa] is straight ahead; à droite [a.dʁwat] is to the right. Mishear that and you walk the wrong way with total confidence.

Say the eight that break

Place names are short, which makes them look easy. These eight are where English speakers reliably come apart:

1. la rue [ʁy] — French u, lips rounded, tongue forward. Not roux.
2. la ville [vil] — the exception to -ille = [ij]. Fille is [fij], ville is [vil].
3. le pont [pɔ̃] — a nasal vowel with no n and no t behind it.
4. le restaurant [ʁɛs.tɔ.ʁɑ̃] — two French _r_s, and it ends on a nasal, not on -ant.
5. la bibliothèque [bi.bli.jɔ.tɛk] — five syllables, a glide after bli, and th is plain [t].
6. le quartier [kaʁ.tje] — qu is [k], and -tier is one syllable.
7. l'aéroport [a.e.ʁɔ.pɔʁ] — a-é is two separate vowels, not a diphthong.
8. l'hôpital [lo.pi.tal] — the h does nothing; the article elides into the o.

→ For rue, avenue and musée: French U vs OU: 20 Minimal Pairs, Scored

→ For ville, fille and the -ille ending: Ille Pronunciation in French: Why Fille and Ville Don't Rhyme

→ For pont, banque and restaurant: French Nasal Vowels AN EN ON IN

→ For rue, restaurant and aéroport: The French R for English Speakers

→ For au coin and il y a: Enchaînement: Why Your French Sounds Choppy

Say it, then check it

Places are the words you use under the most pressure: out loud, to a stranger, usually while lost. They are also where one wrong vowel changes the answer — rue versus roux, droit versus droite, librairie versus bibliothèque.

Say the eight above into Simply French and get each one scored before you need to ask someone the way.

Related

• How to Ask for Directions in French (A1-8)
• How to Get Around in French (A1-23)
• How to Go Shopping in French (A1-9)
• How to Check Into a Hotel in French (A1-11)
• How to Pronounce French City Names
• French Food Vocabulary: 120 Words for Every Meal
• Family Members in French: The Complete Vocabulary List