Breakdown of Après le match, nous allons au café.
Questions & Answers about Après le match, nous allons au café.
In French, the preposition à contracts with the masculine singular article le:
- à + le → au
- à + les → aux
So:
- à le café is grammatically wrong.
- It must be au café, meaning “to the café / at the café.”
With a feminine noun, there is no contraction:
- à + la banque → à la banque
- à + l’école → à l’école (because of the vowel, not because of gender)
French à (and therefore au) often covers both English to and at, depending on context.
- In Nous allons au café, the verb aller (“to go”) naturally gives the sense “we are going to the café.”
- In a different sentence like Nous sommes au café, it would mean “We are at the café.”
So au café itself doesn’t change; the verb decides whether English needs to or at.
In French, you normally need an article (le, la, les) before a concrete noun, even after prepositions like après:
- après le match – after the match
- après la réunion – after the meeting
- après les vacances – after the holidays
Leaving the article out (après match) is not standard French; it might appear rarely in sports jargon or headlines, but in normal speech and writing you should use the article: après le match.
Grammatically, nous allons is present tense of aller (“we go / we are going”).
However, when you combine a present-tense verb with a future time expression like Après le match (“after the match”), it naturally refers to a future action:
- Literally: “After the match, we go to the café.”
- Natural English: “After the match, we’re going to the café.”
So:
- Tense in French: present
- Meaning in context: a planned future action
You have two very natural options:
Simple future:
- Après le match, nous irons au café.
This is a clear future tense: “After the match, we will go to the café.”
It can sound a bit more formal or written than the present.
- Après le match, nous irons au café.
Near future (aller + infinitive):
- Après le match, nous allons aller au café.
Literally: “we are going to go to the café.”
Grammatically correct, but it sounds slightly heavy in everyday speech. People more often keep it simple with nous irons or just the present: nous allons au café.
- Après le match, nous allons aller au café.
Both can mean “we are going to the café.”
nous allons au café
- More formal or neutral.
- Common in writing, in careful speech, and when you want to be very clear or polite.
on va au café
- Very common in everyday spoken French.
- on literally means “one,” but in modern spoken French it very often means “we.”
- Verbs with on use the il/elle conjugation: on va, on mange, etc.
In real life, French speakers say on va au café more often than nous allons au café, especially in casual conversation.
Aller (“to go”) is irregular. In the present tense:
- je vais – I go / I am going
- tu vas – you go (singular, informal)
- il / elle / on va – he / she / one/we goes
- nous allons – we go / we are going
- vous allez – you go (plural or formal)
- ils / elles vont – they go
In the sentence:
- nous allons au café
nous → subject, “we”
allons → present tense of aller for nous
Approximate pronunciation (in IPA and rough English):
Après → /a.pʁɛ/
- ah-PREH (guttural French r)
le → /lə/
- leuh (very short, like the “le” in “lemon” but more relaxed)
match → /matʃ/
- like English “match,” but with a clearer a sound: ma-tch
nous → /nu/
- like “new” but without the y sound: noo
allons → /a.lɔ̃/ with liaison: nous allons → /nu.za.lɔ̃/
- The s in nous links to allons and sounds like z: noo-za-LON (nasal on)
au → /o/
- like the “o” in “go” (without the final glide)
café → /ka.fe/
- ka-FEH
Together:
Après le match, nous allons au café → /a.pʁɛ lə matʃ | nu.za.lɔ̃ o ka.fe/
Yes, both are correct, but they feel slightly different:
Après le match, nous allons au café.
- Present tense used with a future time.
- Very natural and common in speech.
- Implies a planned, fairly certain action.
Après le match, nous irons au café.
- Simple future tense.
- Sounds a bit more formal or deliberate.
- Emphasizes the future aspect more clearly, sometimes with a slight nuance of decision or promise.
In everyday conversation, the present (nous allons au café) is perfectly fine and very common.
They are different:
après = after in time or order
- Après le match, nous allons au café. – After the match…
- Après toi. – After you.
derrière = behind in physical space
- Le café est derrière le stade. – The café is behind the stadium.
- Il est derrière moi. – He is behind me.
So in Après le match, nous allons au café, you must use après because you’re talking about time, not physical position.
Placing a comma after a fronted time expression like this is normal and recommended:
- Après le match, nous allons au café.
This is similar to English:
“After the match, we are going to the café.”
You might sometimes see it without the comma in very informal writing, but the version with the comma is the standard, correct punctuation.