Welcome back to all of our French learners – it’s time for your word of the week! Today we’ve chosen the noun carte. Take a listen to its pronunciation in the audio clip below:
After seeing its spelling and hearing its pronunciation, a lot of readers might be thinking that they recognise this French word. While it does have a few different English translations (which we’ll get into very soon), you’ve most likely heard it in the context of dining out. The phrase à la carte might come to mind, meaning a food menu where you select your own dishes, as opposed to a set menu. In fact, we use this so often that we don’t even have a translation for the term in English!
But menu is just one of the meanings of carte. Depending on the context, it can also translate as card, pass or map. As a feminine noun, you might see the article une, or la before the word carte. For more information, head over to our Easy Learning French Grammar page on genders of nouns, indefinite articles and definite articles.
Now that we’ve established its meanings, let’s look at carte in action. There are many combinations of common nouns involving this word, so it’s certainly useful for everyday French:
carte d’anniversaire birthday card
carte de vœux greetings card
carte de crédit credit card
carte bancaire bank card; debit card
carte d’identité ID card
carte graphique a graphics card (in a computer)
N’oublie pas de nous envoyer une carte postale ! Don’t forget to send us a postcard!
Aimez-vous les jeux de cartes ? / Aimez-vous jouer aux cartes ? Do you like playing cards?
(If you noticed a slightly different spelling above, you’ve got a good eye! Cartes is simply the plural form of carte. In the case of most French nouns, you can just add ‘s’ to make a singular into a plural.)
J’ai raté l’avion parce que j’avais perdu ma carte d’embarquement. I missed the plane because I had lost my boarding pass.
Il faut montrer votre carte de presse pour y entrer. You need to show your press pass to get in here.
avoir carte blanche to have free rein (we also borrow this French term in English)
C’est une carte routière des Etats-Unis des années soixante. It’s a road map of the USA from the sixties.
Nous allons prendre le menu complet car il n’y a aucun dessert à la carte. We’re having the full set menu as there aren’t any desserts offered à la carte.
Thank you for reading our blog – we hope that you’ve learned enough about the word carte to go out and use it with confidence. If you’re still hungry for more French, make sure to come back next week to see what word we have on the menu!
Written by Holly Tarbet, freelance copywriter and editor.
All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.
