Breakdown of Ils déjeunent à la cantine et prennent un sandwich au fromage.
Questions & Answers about Ils déjeunent à la cantine et prennent un sandwich au fromage.
In French, the verb déjeuner already means to have lunch. You normally don’t say manger le déjeuner.
- Ils déjeunent. = They are having lunch.
- Saying Ils mangent le déjeuner sounds awkward or overly literal to a native speaker.
French prefers a single verb for having a meal:
- déjeuner = to have lunch (in France)
- dîner = to have dinner (in France)
So you say:
- Je déjeune à midi. = I have lunch at noon.
- Nous dînons à huit heures. = We have dinner at eight.
Using manger + a noun for the meal is possible in some specific contexts, but not the everyday normal way to say it.
Not everywhere. It depends on the French-speaking region.
In France:
- le petit déjeuner = breakfast
- le déjeuner = lunch
- le dîner = dinner (evening meal)
In many parts of Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, etc.:
- le déjeuner = breakfast
- le dîner = lunch
- le souper = dinner (evening meal)
The sentence Ils déjeunent à la cantine is in standard European French, so it means They have lunch at the canteen.
Déjeuner is a regular -er verb. In the present tense:
- je déjeune – I have lunch
- tu déjeunes – you have lunch (singular, informal)
- il / elle / on déjeune – he / she / one has lunch
- nous déjeunons – we have lunch
- vous déjeunez – you have lunch (plural or formal)
- ils / elles déjeunent – they have lunch
In the sentence:
- Ils déjeunent → ils (they) + déjeunent (3rd person plural ending -ent)
Note that the -ent in déjeunent is silent; it sounds the same as je déjeune.
Both à la and dans la can translate as at or in, but they’re used differently.
- à la cantine = at the cafeteria, in the cafeteria (as a place where they go to eat)
- Focus on the location/function (the cafeteria as a service or place you use).
- dans la cantine = inside the cafeteria (physically inside the room)
- Focus on the physical interior.
For routine activities like eating meals, French usually uses à:
- à la cantine – at the cafeteria
- à l’école – at school
- au restaurant – at the restaurant
- au travail – at work
So Ils déjeunent à la cantine is the natural way to say They have lunch at the cafeteria.
In French, when two verbs share the same subject and are joined by et (and), you usually mention the subject only once:
- Ils déjeunent à la cantine et prennent un sandwich au fromage.
Here, ils is still the subject of prennent, but it’s understood and doesn’t need to be repeated. You could say:
- Ils déjeunent à la cantine et ils prennent un sandwich au fromage.
This is grammatically correct, but in a simple sentence like this, repeating ils sounds heavier and is less natural. Dropping it after et is very common and stylistically smoother.
Yes, you can say both:
- Ils prennent un sandwich.
- Ils mangent un sandwich.
Both are correct, but prendre is very common with meals and individual food/drink items:
- prendre un sandwich
- prendre un café
- prendre un verre de vin
- prendre le petit déjeuner
It often means to have / to take (as a choice or order), especially when ordering food or talking about what someone chooses to eat or drink.
Manger simply means to eat. So:
- Ils prennent un sandwich. → They (choose / have) a sandwich.
- Ils mangent un sandwich. → They are eating a sandwich.
In many contexts, they’re interchangeable, but prendre is more idiomatic when talking about what you order or have.
In French, every noun has a grammatical gender: masculine or feminine. The word sandwich is masculine.
So you say:
- un sandwich – a sandwich
- le sandwich – the sandwich
- ce sandwich – this/that sandwich
- mon sandwich – my sandwich
There is no logical reason; it’s just the gender that French has assigned to this word. It’s something you have to memorize for each noun.
Au here comes from à + le:
- à + le = au
You use à + article (so au, à la, aux) to talk about flavors, toppings, or main ingredients of a prepared item:
- un sandwich au fromage – a cheese sandwich
- une pizza au jambon – a ham pizza
- une glace à la vanille – vanilla ice cream
- un croissant aux amandes – an almond croissant
Why not the others?
un sandwich de fromage
Suggests the sandwich is made of cheese (as material), which sounds odd. De is more for composition:- une statue de bois – a statue made of wood.
un sandwich avec fromage
Literally a sandwich with cheese. This is understandable but sounds less idiomatic, more like you’re adding cheese on top of an existing sandwich. For a standard cheese sandwich, un sandwich au fromage is the natural phrase.
Yes, you can make it plural:
- Ils déjeunent à la cantine et prennent des sandwichs au fromage. = They have lunch at the cafeteria and (they) have cheese sandwiches.
For the plural of sandwich, both spellings are seen:
- des sandwichs (simpler, recommended by many modern sources)
- des sandwiches (also correct and quite common)
In practice, you’ll encounter both. The pronunciation is the same in everyday speech.
Both refer to the present, but they don’t have exactly the same nuance.
Ils déjeunent.
General present:- They have lunch (in general, as a habit), or
- They are having lunch (right now), depending on context.
Ils sont en train de déjeuner.
Literally: They are in the process of having lunch.
This construction emphasizes that the action is happening right now, in progress at this very moment.
In your sentence, Ils déjeunent à la cantine can already mean They are having lunch at the cafeteria (now), so you don’t need sont en train de unless you really want to stress the ongoing action.