Exprimer Quantités et Prix

Asking how much something costs and naming a quantity are two of the most concrete things you'll do as a beginner in French — at the bakery, at the market, at the till. The vocabulary is small but the patterns are specific: the obligatory de after quantity nouns (un kilo *de pommes, never *un kilo pommes), the comma-decimal convention that makes prices look strange to English readers (1,50 €), and a small set of fixed formulas for asking and stating prices. This page covers the practical phrases for shop and market encounters at A2 level.

Asking the price

The most useful question in any commercial encounter:

The two main forms — combien ça coûte ? and c'est combien ? — are interchangeable. Combien ça coûte ? is slightly more explicit; c'est combien ? is shorter and very common in markets and small shops. Both are entirely standard.

For a more polite or formal register — useful in expensive shops or restaurants — French uses the verb faire (to make/do):

Combien je vous dois ? is a particularly polite way to ask for the bill — it positions you as the debtor, asking what is owed, and is widely used in restaurants and at counter service.

For asking about a specific item:

Stating the price

For stating a price, French has three near-equivalent formulas:

The shopkeeper announcing your bill will most often say ça fait + price, particularly when totalling several items:

The future form ça vous fera (literally "that will make for you") is a slightly more formal variant — common at restaurant tills and in nicer shops.

For per-unit prices:

The pattern à + price + le/la + unit is the standard way to express price-per-unit. Notice that the article (le, la) appears with the unit — le kilo, le litre, la pièce — even though English would say "a kilo," "a litre."

The decimal comma — and how to read it aloud

A pure orthographic point with practical consequences: French uses a comma for the decimal separator, where English uses a period. The price you would write €1.50 in English is 1,50 € in French.

For thousands separators, French traditionally uses a thin space (or sometimes a period) where English uses a comma. So an English-style 1,500.50 becomes a French-style 1 500,50. The two conventions are reversed, which is why French and English bills can look mutually disorienting.

Aloud, the decimal is usually read as the unit name itself:

You will rarely hear the formal virgule (comma) read aloud in price contexts — un euro virgule cinquante sounds technical and is reserved for situations where the precise format matters. In everyday speech, the cents follow the euros directly: un euro cinquante.

The unit centime (cent) exists in French — un euro et cinquante centimes — but it is markedly more formal and less common than the bare-cents form. Un euro cinquante is what you will hear in shops.

For prices in dollars, pounds, or other currencies, the structure is the same: cinq dollars, deux livres cinquante, trois cents francs suisses.

Quantity expressions: the de rule

When naming a quantity of something — a kilo of apples, a bottle of wine, a slice of bread — French requires de between the quantity word and the noun. The article that the noun would normally carry disappears.

The pattern is quantity + de + noun, and the noun appears bare — without le, la, les, du, de la, or des. Un kilo de les pommes is wrong; un kilo de pommes is correct. The article disappears because de alone introduces the noun in this construction.

The de contracts to d' before a vowel or silent h:

The contraction is mandatory — de eau and de œufs are wrong.

For the full conceptual treatment of quantity expressions and the underlying logic of why the article disappears, see phrases avec expressions de quantité. At the practical level, the rule for shopping is simple: any quantity word that you can fit into the slot "[X] of apples" — un kilo, une douzaine, un sachet, un paquet, un peu — takes de before the noun, and the noun appears without an article.

A vocabulary of common quantities

The most useful quantity words for everyday shopping:

A useful market vocabulary point: une livre in French means half a kilo (500 g), not the English pound. So une livre de tomates is 500 g of tomatoes. The unit is still in everyday use at French markets.

Polite ordering: je voudrais, je prends

The single most useful verb form for ordering in French is the conditional je voudrais — "I would like." It softens the request and is essential in service contexts.

The bare present je veux — "I want" — is grammatically correct but sounds blunt or even rude in commercial contexts. Je voudrais is the standard polite form and you should use it by default.

A common alternative when you've already decided what you want and are confirming your order:

Je prends (present) is direct but not rude — it signals decision rather than desire. Je prendrais bien (conditional + bien) is a slightly playful "I'd quite like" — common in casual contexts.

Shopkeeper formulas

The shopkeeper has their own scripted phrases. Knowing them helps you parse and respond:

The exchange after you've placed your order typically runs: shopkeeper asks et avec ça ? (anything else?), you either name something else (je voudrais aussi...) or say non, ce sera tout, merci (no, that's all, thanks). They state the total, you pay, you exchange au revoir, bonne journée.

A common follow-up question at the bakery or market:

The phrase à emporter (to take away) and sur place (here, on the premises) are essential at takeaway counters. Un café à emporter is "a coffee to go"; un café sur place is "a coffee here." The price often differs (sit-down service is more expensive in France).

Drilling: a complete market exchange

A complete exchange at the market for vegetables:

A quicker exchange at the bakery:

Notice how compressed the bakery exchange is — for routine purchases, the conversation is reduced to a greeting, the order, the price, the payment, and a farewell.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

Asking the price uses combien ça coûte ? / c'est combien ? in everyday speech and ça fait combien ? / combien je vous dois ? in slightly more formal contexts. Stating a price uses c'est X euros, ça fait X euros, ça coûte X euros — all interchangeable, with ça fait most common when the shopkeeper is totalling up a bill. The decimal point in French is a comma (1,50 €), and in speech the cents follow the unit name: un euro cinquante. Quantity expressions follow the rigid pattern quantity + de + noun, with the noun appearing bare and de eliding to d' before vowels — un kilo de pommes, une bouteille de vin, un peu d'eau. For polite ordering, default to je voudrais rather than je veux; the bare imperative donnez-moi sounds rude. The shopkeeper's scripted phrases — et avec ça ?, ce sera tout ?, ça vous fera... — round out the standard exchange. Master these patterns and you can navigate any French market, bakery, or counter.