This instalment of our French conversation blog is all about making a purchase in French. In different situations, you’re going to need to ask to buy things in French, use expressions about money, and of course ask “how much does it cost?”
This blog looks at the words, phrases and verbs we might use to talk about making a purchase in all different forms – whether you’re haggling at a market stall for a five-euro discount, or tapping your contactless card in a hypermarché, get ready to bolster your vocabulary and phrase bank with the terms you need for purchasing goods and services in French.
Let’s start with the basics – you can’t ask much about prices if you don’t know how to talk about numbers. If you need a quick refresher on the numbers from 1-100, head over to our Easy Learning French Grammar page on numbers.
This sort of conversation usually starts with a question about the price or cost of something. A verb you’ll need to familiarise yourself with is coûter, meaning ‘to cost’.
Combien coûte…? How much is…?
Combien ça coûte ? How much is it/that?
Combien est-ce que ça va coûter ? How much is that going to cost?
Ça fait combien ? How much is that in total?
C’est combien pour…? How much is it for…?
While all of the phrases above work for nouns, if you want to ask how much it costs to do something, use Ça coûte combien de…? followed by the verb infinitive.
Ça coûte combien d’y aller en train ? How much does it cost to go there by train?
Ça coûte combien de faire la visite guidée ? How much does it cost to do the guided tour?
In the next part of this conversation, you’d usually expect the responder to tell you the cost [x] involved in the transaction:
Ça coûte [x] euros. It costs [x] euros.
[Noun singular] coûte [x] euros. [This noun] costs [x] euros.
[Noun plural] coûtent [x] euros. [These nouns] cost [x] euros.
Ça fait [x] euros. That’s [x] euros in total.
Ça fera [x] euros. That’ll be [x] euros in total.
When it comes to discussing currency in French, it’s probably worth knowing the following terms:
euro (m) euro
centime (m) euro cent
livre (f) pound sterling
dollar (m) dollar
franc (m) suisse Swiss franc
While we’re on this topic, there are further intricacies of dealing with money in French that are slightly different from what we’re used to in the UK. Usually, when you see a price tag or pricelist in France, the euro sign either comes last, or replaces the decimal point, and a comma is used for the decimal place instead of a full stop.
UK: £3.99
France: 3€99 OR 3,99€
Also, a space or a full stop is used to separate units of numbers rather than a comma.
UK: £2,560,420
France: 2 560 420€ OR 2.560.420€
Hopefully your head isn’t spinning with all of these numbers! As well as what we’ve discussed above, we wouldn’t want to send you away without a few phrases and terms about making payment:
Est-ce que je peux payer par carte ? Can I pay by card?
Je peux payer sans contact ? Can I pay contactless?
Voulez-vous le reçu ? Do you want the receipt?
Gardez la monnaie. Keep the change.
le paiement sans contact contactless payment
le paiement mobile mobile payment / payment by mobile
payer en liquide to pay in cash
Now that we’ve covered the questions and the responses that might be asked and given, let’s look at an example exchange in action – first in French and then the English translation:
A : Combien coûtent les fraises ?
B : Les fraises coûtent trois euros cinquante au kilo.
A : Ah bon ? Ça m’a coûté cinq euros au supermarché ! J’en prends deux kilos s’il vous plaît.
B : Ça fera sept euros.
A : Merci. Je peux payer par carte ?
B : Oui, allez-y… Voulez-vous le reçu ?
A: How much do the strawberries cost?
B: Strawberries cost €3.50 per kilo.
A: Ah, really? They cost me €5 at the supermarket! I’ll take two kilos please.
B: That’ll be €7.
A: Thanks. Can I pay by card?
B: Yes, go ahead… Do you want the receipt?
Everything you’ve learned in this blog should stand you in pretty good stead for asking the price and making a purchase in French. Don’t skip out on memorising those numbers though – you don’t want to start haggling for the wrong price!
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.
