Nous avons l’occasion de parler.

Because occasion is a feminine noun, so its article is normally la. But in French, la becomes l’ before a word that starts with a vowel sound. Since occasion begins with o, you say l’occasion.

So:

• la table
• la maison
• l’occasion

This is called elision.

Literally, nous avons means we have.

• nous = we
• avons = have (the nous form of avoir)

So the sentence is literally something like We have the opportunity to speak.

Avons is the present-tense form of the verb avoir used with nous.

The present forms of avoir are:

• j’ai = I have
• tu as = you have
• il/elle/on a = he/she/one has
• nous avons = we have
• vous avez = you have
• ils/elles ont = they have

Since the subject is nous, the verb has to be avons.

Because after l’occasion, French normally uses de + infinitive to say what the opportunity is for.

So:

• l’occasion de parler = the opportunity to speak
• l’occasion de voir = the opportunity to see
• l’occasion de partir = the opportunity to leave

This is just the standard pattern: avoir l’occasion de + infinitive

Because after de, French uses the infinitive here, not a conjugated verb.

• parler = to speak / to talk
• parlons = we speak / let’s speak

In this sentence, parler is part of the expression avoir l’occasion de parler, so it stays in the infinitive.

It can mean either, depending on context. In many cases, parler covers both to speak and to talk in English.

So this sentence could be understood as:

• We have the opportunity to speak
• We have a chance to talk

The exact English wording depends on the situation.

It can mean both, but in this sentence opportunity or chance is usually the most natural translation.

French occasion often means:

• opportunity
• chance
• sometimes occasion in the sense of an event or situation

So in Nous avons l’occasion de parler, the idea is we have the chance/opportunity to speak, not necessarily we have the occasion to speak, which sounds less natural in English.

Yes. That is very common in everyday spoken French.

• Nous avons l’occasion de parler is fully correct and a bit more formal or careful.
• On a l’occasion de parler is more natural in casual conversation.

In modern spoken French, on often replaces nous for we.

A careful pronunciation is roughly:

noo zah-von lo-ka-zyon duh par-lay

A few things to notice:

• nous avons has a liaison, so the s in nous links to the next word and sounds like z:
  nous avons → noo-zavon
• l’occasion begins with a vowel sound, so it flows directly after avons
• the r in parler is the French r, not an English one

A more French-like IPA pronunciation is approximately: /nu.z‿a.vɔ̃ lɔ.ka.zjɔ̃ də paʁ.le/

Not with exactly the same meaning here.

• Nous avons l’occasion de parler = We have the opportunity to speak
• Nous avons une occasion de parler would sound more like We have an opportunity / one opportunity to speak, which is possible, but less natural in many contexts

Using l’ often refers to the opportunity available in this situation, which is why it is very common here.

Yes. Nous avons is present tense.

So the sentence means that right now, in the current situation, we have the opportunity to speak.

If you changed the tense, the meaning would shift:

• Nous avions l’occasion de parler = We had the opportunity to speak
• Nous aurons l’occasion de parler = We will have the opportunity to speak

Yes. The structure is very flexible:

Nous avons l’occasion de + infinitive

For example:

• Nous avons l’occasion de nous rencontrer. = We have the opportunity to meet.
• Nous avons l’occasion de travailler ensemble. = We have the opportunity to work together.
• Nous avons l’occasion de poser des questions. = We have the opportunity to ask questions.

So once you learn this pattern, you can reuse it with many verbs.