Breakdown of La serveuse revient avec le dessert pendant que le serveur prépare l’addition.
Questions & Answers about La serveuse revient avec le dessert pendant que le serveur prépare l’addition.
French marks the gender of many job titles.
- serveur = a waiter (male, or generic in some contexts)
- serveuse = a waitress (female)
The article changes to match:
- la serveuse – the (female) server
- le serveur – the (male) server
The sentence is simply telling you that one server is a woman and the other is a man. Grammatically, serveuse is just the feminine form of serveur.
French does not have a special continuous tense like English is coming, is preparing. The simple present usually covers both:
- La serveuse revient can mean The waitress comes back or The waitress is coming back, depending on context.
- Le serveur prépare can mean The waiter prepares or is preparing.
So the normal French present tense expresses ongoing actions here; you don’t need an extra auxiliary like être.
You can say:
- … pendant que le serveur est en train de préparer l’addition.
That literally highlights that the action is in progress “right now.”
However:
- est en train de + infinitive is usually used when you specifically want to emphasize the ongoing nature of the action.
- In everyday narration (especially written), simple prépare is more natural and less heavy.
So prépare is the default; est en train de préparer is more emphatic or descriptive.
pendant que means while / at the same time as and introduces an action that is ongoing during another action.
- La serveuse revient… pendant que le serveur prépare…
→ The two actions overlap in time.
quand is more general and can mean when, often introducing a point in time rather than emphasizing simultaneity:
- La serveuse revient quand le serveur prépare l’addition
can work, but it sounds less natural and a bit vague; it doesn’t stress the “two things happening at once” idea as clearly.
So pendant que specifically highlights that the two actions are concurrent.
You could say:
- … tandis que le serveur prépare l’addition.
- … alors que le serveur prépare l’addition.
However, tandis que and alors que often carry a nuance of contrast (“whereas”) in addition to simultaneity.
- Pendant que: neutral “while (at the same time as).”
- Tandis que / Alors que: often “while / whereas,” suggesting a comparison or contrast.
In your sentence, pendant que is the most neutral and straightforward choice.
The article changes the meaning slightly:
- avec le dessert – with the dessert (a specific dessert that’s already been identified or ordered).
- avec du dessert – with some dessert (an unspecified quantity, more like talking about dessert in general).
- avec des desserts – with (some) desserts, plural (several desserts).
In a restaurant context, the customer probably ordered a particular dessert, so using the definite article le (the) is most natural: avec le dessert.
Both nouns use the definite article le:
- le dessert – d
- vowel sound, no special change
- le addition would be awkward to say, because addition starts with a vowel sound
In French, le and la turn into l’ in front of a vowel (or mute h):
- l’addition = le
- addition
So:
- le dessert (consonant at the start of dessert)
- l’addition (vowel at the start of addition, so we elide le to l’)
Not in this context.
French une addition can mean:
- A mathematical addition (like in English).
- In a restaurant, the bill or check.
In this sentence, l’addition clearly refers to the bill. Other French words meaning bill/invoice include facture and note, but addition is the standard word for a restaurant bill.
All these verbs are related to “going back,” but they’re used differently:
- revenir – to come back (towards the speaker or a reference point)
- retourner – to go back, to return (often more neutral, or away from the current location)
- rentrer – to go/come back home or back inside (a place you belong to)
In a restaurant situation:
- The serveuse is away from the table and then comes back to the customers’ table.
→ revenir fits well: La serveuse revient avec le dessert.
Retourner could be used in other contexts, e.g. Elle retourne en cuisine (She goes back to the kitchen), but here revient focuses on her coming back to the guests.
In French, the normal word order in a statement is:
subject + verb + (object)
So the clause must be:
- pendant que le serveur prépare l’addition
(subject le serveur, then verb prépare, then object l’addition)
In English, you can sometimes invert things for emphasis, but in French you almost never invert subject and verb inside a normal statement clause. Pendant que prépare le serveur l’addition sounds ungrammatical in standard French.
French nouns that refer to people often have masculine and feminine forms.
- Masculine: un serveur, le serveur
- Feminine: une serveuse, la serveuse
Notice:
- The article changes (le / la, un / une) to match the noun’s gender.
- The noun itself changes form (serveur → serveuse).
Any adjectives describing these nouns would also agree in gender and number, e.g.:
- la serveuse sympathique
- les serveurs sympathiques
A few useful notes:
- pendant: the final -t is silent; roughly [pɑ̃.dɑ̃].
- que le: both que and le are pronounced; no liaison between them, just [kə lə].
- serveur: final -r lightly pronounced in standard French; the eu is like the vowel in peur.
- prépare: final -e is usually silent; sounds like [pre-par].
- l’addition: the d is pronounced; the tion sounds like -sion in English “vision”.
There’s no mandatory liaison between serveur and prépare, or between avec and le here; you pronounce them separately in normal speech.
You could say:
- … au moment où le serveur prépare l’addition.
Au moment où literally means at the moment when. It tends to point to a more precise moment in time, whereas pendant que focuses on two actions overlapping in duration.
Both can be correct, but:
- pendant que: emphasizes simultaneity of ongoing actions.
- au moment où: often feels more like “(exactly) when this happens.”
In your original sentence, pendant que is the most natural and usual choice.