Question 1

Why is there no word for "a" in Bon week-end?

Accepted Answer

In French, when you are wishing someone a good time, like "have a good trip" (bon voyage) or "have a good weekend" (bon week-end), you drop the word for "a" (un or une). You use the masculine adjective bon because week-end is a masculine noun.

Question 2

Is week-end really a French word?

Accepted Answer

Yes! French borrows a number of words from English. It is usually written with a hyphen (week-end) and pronounced with a slight French accent. Like most borrowed English words, it is treated as a masculine noun.

Question 3

What verb is vais from? It doesn't look like a normal verb.

Accepted Answer

Vais is the "I" form of the highly irregular verb aller, which means "to go". Because it is irregular, je vais (I go or I am going) doesn't look at all like its base form. It is a very common word that you just have to memorize.

Question 4

Why do we need la in à la mer? Can't I just say à mer?

Accepted Answer

In English, we say "to the sea", and French does the exact same thing here: à means "to" and la means "the". In French, you almost always need an article (like "the" or "a") before a noun. Because mer (sea) is a feminine noun, we use la.

Question 5

Mer (sea) sounds exactly like mère (mother). How do I tell them apart?

Accepted Answer

You are right, they are pronounced exactly the same! You have to rely on the context of the sentence. If someone is going on a weekend trip, it is la mer. Also, if you were talking about going to your mother's house, you wouldn't say à la mère, you would use the word chez (at the home of) and say chez ma mère.

Bon week-end ! Je vais à la mer.

Breakdown of Bon week-end ! Je vais à la mer.

Questions & Answers about Bon week-end ! Je vais à la mer.

Learn Bon week-end ! Je vais à la mer and more in French