Au restaurant, la serveuse apporte le menu et sourit à Marie.

At the restaurant, the waitress brings the menu and smiles at Marie.

Breakdown of Au restaurant, la serveuse apporte le menu et sourit à Marie.

• Marie: Marie
• et: and
• à: to
• le restaurant: the restaurant
• sourire: to smile
• apporter: to bring
• au: at the
• la serveuse: the waitress
• le menu: the menu

Questions & Answers about Au restaurant, la serveuse apporte le menu et sourit à Marie.

What does Au restaurant literally mean, and why do we say au instead of à le?

Au restaurant literally means At the restaurant or In the restaurant.

In French, à + le contracts to au in front of a masculine singular noun:

• à + le restaurant → au restaurant

This contraction is mandatory in standard French; you cannot say à le restaurant.

Other examples:

• à + le cinéma → au cinéma
• à + le parc → au parc

If the noun is feminine, there is no contraction:

• à + la boulangerie → à la boulangerie

Why is it la serveuse and not le serveuse or la serveur?

French nouns have grammatical gender.

• serveur = masculine form (male waiter) → le serveur
• serveuse = feminine form (female waiter) → la serveuse

Because the sentence is talking about a female server, it uses the feminine noun serveuse and the corresponding feminine article la → la serveuse.

You cannot mix a feminine article with a masculine noun (la serveur) or a masculine article with a feminine noun (le serveuse). They must agree:

• le serveur
• la serveuse

Is it always necessary to use the feminine form serveuse if the waiter is a woman?

In modern standard French, yes, it is normal and expected to use la serveuse for a woman and le serveur for a man.

In older or very formal usage, some professions only had a masculine form, even for women, but for common jobs like waiter/waitress, the feminine form serveuse is completely standard and sounds natural.

So:

• A woman: la serveuse
• A man: le serveur
• If you don’t know the gender: many people still default to serveur (le serveur), but you could also use a neutral expression like le personnel de salle (the waiting staff) depending on context.

Why is the verb apporte used here instead of porte or amène?

French makes a distinction between:

• apporter – to bring something (an object)
• amener – to bring someone (a person or sometimes an animal)
• porter – to carry / to wear

In the sentence, the server is bringing an object (the menu) to the table, so apporter is the natural choice:

• La serveuse apporte le menu. = The waitress brings the menu.

Examples:

• Il apporte une bouteille de vin. – He brings a bottle of wine.
• Elle amène sa sœur. – She brings her sister.
• Il porte un sac lourd. – He is carrying a heavy bag.
• Elle porte une robe rouge. – She is wearing a red dress.

So porte le menu would usually mean is carrying the menu rather than is bringing the menu (to someone), and amène le menu sounds wrong because menu is not a person.

Why is apporte in the simple present? In English we would probably say is bringing.

French uses the simple present tense much more often than English.

La serveuse apporte le menu can correspond to:

• The waitress brings the menu
  or
• The waitress is bringing the menu

French does have a form similar to is bringing (est en train d’apporter), but it is used only when you really want to emphasize that the action is happening right now and is in progress:

• La serveuse est en train d’apporter le menu. – The waitress is (in the middle of) bringing the menu.

In everyday narration or descriptions, the simple present apporte is usually enough.

Why do we say le menu and not un menu here?

Le menu uses the definite article le, which often implies:

• something specific or already known, or
• something that is understood from context as being “the usual one” in that situation.

In a restaurant, the menu is a specific, expected object: people know that when you sit down, the server brings the menu.

Compare:

• La serveuse apporte le menu. – The waitress brings the menu. (the usual, expected menu for that table)
• La serveuse apporte un menu. – The waitress brings a menu. (one menu among others, maybe not yet specific; sounds a bit less natural here unless you’re counting or contrasting: She brings one menu, then another, etc.)

What is the difference between le menu and la carte in a restaurant?

In French restaurants (especially in France), le menu and la carte do not mean exactly the same thing:

• la carte = the full list of dishes and drinks you can choose from
  
  • Often translated as the menu in English, but literally the card.
• le menu = a fixed-price set meal (a combination of starter, main, dessert, etc.)
  
  • Often translated as set menu, fixed-price menu, or meal deal.

However, in some contexts (especially outside France, or in casual speech), le menu is also used in the English sense (the list of dishes). In textbooks for beginners, le menu is often taught as the menu to keep things simple.

So in real life in France:

• You might say: La serveuse apporte la carte. – The waitress brings the menu (the list).
• And then choose un menu inside that card.

Why do we say sourit à Marie instead of just sourit Marie?

In French, the verb sourire (to smile) requires the preposition à before the person you are smiling at.

Structure:

• sourire à quelqu’un = to smile at someone

So:

• Elle sourit à Marie. – She smiles at Marie.
  You cannot say Elle sourit Marie; that is ungrammatical.

Other examples:

• Il sourit à son ami. – He smiles at his friend.
• Ils sourient aux enfants. – They smile at the children.

Can we replace à Marie with a pronoun? How would that work?

Yes. When à + person is the indirect object, you usually replace it with lui (singular) or leur (plural).

• La serveuse sourit à Marie. → La serveuse lui sourit.
  (lui = to her / to him)
• La serveuse sourit aux clients. → La serveuse leur sourit.
  (leur = to them)

Note:

• lui works for both to him and to her in French. Context tells you which one.

Why is there a comma after Au restaurant?

Au restaurant is an introductory phrase that sets the scene (it tells us where the action takes place).

In French, as in English, when you put this kind of adverbial phrase at the beginning of the sentence, you normally separate it with a comma:

• Au restaurant, la serveuse apporte le menu.
• Le matin, je bois un café.
• Dans ce film, il joue un médecin.

You could also put au restaurant at the end with a slightly different feel:

• La serveuse apporte le menu au restaurant.
  This is grammatically correct but sounds more like you are contrasting it with another place (e.g. at the café she does something else). The fronted version with the comma is the natural way to set the scene here.

How does subject–verb agreement work in la serveuse apporte?

In French, the verb must agree with the subject in person and number.

• Subject: la serveuse (3rd person singular, feminine)
• Verb: apporter conjugated in the present, 3rd person singular → elle apporte

So:

• La serveuse apporte le menu. = Elle apporte le menu.

If the subject were plural, the verb would change:

• Les serveuses apportent le menu. – The (female) servers bring the menu.
• Les serveurs apportent le menu. – The (male/mixed) servers bring the menu.

Note how apporte becomes apportent in the 3rd person plural.

How do you pronounce the final consonants in apporte, menu, and sourit?

Pronunciation details:

• apporte → /a.pɔʁt/

  • The final -e is silent.
  • The t is pronounced: it sounds like ap-port.

• menu → /mə.ny/

  • The e in the first syllable is a weak schwa sound (like the e in the when said quickly).
  • The u is the French u /y/, made with spread lips; it does not sound like English oo in food.

• sourit → /su.ʁi/

  • The final t is silent.
  • The ou is like oo in food.
  • The r is the French guttural r, made in the throat.

So:

• apporte – ends in a pronounced t
• sourit – final t is silent
  This kind of variation is common in French and must be memorized word by word.

Can the order of the two actions change? For example, can we say Au restaurant, la serveuse sourit à Marie et apporte le menu?

Yes, you can change the order of the coordinated verbs:

• Au restaurant, la serveuse apporte le menu et sourit à Marie.
• Au restaurant, la serveuse sourit à Marie et apporte le menu.

Both are grammatically correct. The difference is mostly about what you want to emphasize or which action you imagine first. French allows this flexibility as long as:

• the subject (la serveuse) is clear, and
• the verbs agree with that subject (both are in 3rd person singular present: apporte, sourit).