Small talk with coworkers: Chatting about the weekend on Monday morning

💬 At the start of a sentence, Bon doesn't mean "good." It works like "Right" or "Okay" and signals you're wrapping up or moving on.

🇫🇷 This is the standard Monday-morning question by the coffee machine. A short, light answer is what people expect, not a full report.

💬 The extra e in allée shows that a woman is speaking; a man writes allé. Both sound identical out loud.

💬 Swap the place to reuse this pattern: à la montagne "to the mountains" or à la campagne "to the countryside."

💬 French talks about weather with faire "to make/do," and il here refers to no one in particular. The same pattern gives you Il a fait froid "It was cold."

🇫🇷 Answering a weekend question with just Tranquille means "low-key, relaxing." It's a perfectly normal and positive reply, not a complaint that nothing happened.

💬 J' is je shortened before a vowel and always attaches to the next word. It never appears on its own.

💬 No word for "on" is needed: just say samedi soir. Adding le, as in le samedi, changes the meaning to "on Saturdays" in general.

💬 Sympa is short for sympathique and means nice or friendly, not "sympathetic." You can use it for people, places and plans alike.

💬 Putting quoi "what" at the end is the everyday spoken way to ask. Here vous means "you all," the group your coworker was with.

💬 In conversation, French speakers say on far more often than nous for "we." It takes the same verb form as il: on a, on est.

💬 À plus le always merges into au. The same thing happens in au cinéma "to/at the cinema."

💬 C'était "it was" is the go-to form for describing how something went. Swap the ending to get C'était sympa or C'était génial.

🇫🇷 In France, un café by default means a small espresso. If you want something longer, ask for un café allongé "a long coffee."

💬 Je vais plus an action is the easy way to talk about what you're about to do. For example, Je vais travailler means "I'm going to work."

💬 Here the final s is usually pronounced (ah ploos). That's unusual, since final s is normally silent in French.

🇫🇷 Colleagues say this when parting in the morning or midday. Later in the afternoon it switches to Bonne soirée "Have a good evening."