Nous restons au café jusqu’à midi.

Restons is the nous form of the verb rester, which means to stay or to remain.

The present-tense conjugation of rester is:

• je reste
• tu restes
• il / elle / on reste
• nous restons
• vous restez
• ils / elles restent

So nous restons means we stay or we are staying.

In French, rester means to stay/remain in a place, while être simply means to be.

So:

• Nous sommes au café = We are at the café
• Nous restons au café = We are staying at the café / We remain at the café

The sentence is about continuing to stay there, not just being there.

Because in French, à + le contracts to au.

So:

• à + le = au
• à + les = aux

That is why au café is correct.

Examples:

• Je vais au marché.
• Nous sommes au restaurant.

But if the noun were feminine, there would be no au:

• à la gare

It can mean either one, depending on the verb and context.

With rester, it means at the café, because rester describes being/staying in a place.

Compare:

• Nous restons au café. = We are staying at the café.
• Nous allons au café. = We are going to the café.

So the verb tells you whether it is movement or location.

Jusqu’à means until or up to.

In this sentence, jusqu’à midi means until noon.

It marks the endpoint of time:

• jusqu’à midi = until noon
• jusqu’à demain = until tomorrow
• jusqu’à Paris = as far as Paris

Because jusque becomes jusqu’ before a word beginning with a vowel sound, such as à.

So:

• jusque + à → jusqu’à

This is a normal spelling change to make pronunciation smoother.

You will see the same pattern in other expressions:

• jusqu’ici
• jusqu’à demain
• jusqu’en été

After jusqu’à, French normally says jusqu’à midi without an article.

So:

• à midi = at noon
• jusqu’à midi = until noon

French often uses midi and minuit without an article in time expressions.

Examples:

• Il arrive à midi.
• Nous travaillons jusqu’à minuit.

They mean different things:

• à midi = at noon
  This gives a specific time.
• jusqu’à midi = until noon
  This gives an endpoint.

So:

• Nous partons à midi. = We leave at noon.
• Nous restons au café jusqu’à midi. = We stay at the café until noon.

Yes. In French, the present tense often describes a current plan or near future, especially when there is a time expression.

So Nous restons au café jusqu’à midi can mean:

• We’re staying at the café until noon right now, or
• We will stay at the café until noon, depending on context

French uses the present this way more often than English sometimes does.

Yes, in everyday spoken French, people often use on instead of nous for we.

So you may hear:

• On reste au café jusqu’à midi.

This is very natural in conversation.

The version with nous is still completely correct and is a bit more formal or careful in style.

Restons is pronounced roughly like reh-ston with a nasal ending.

A few helpful points:

• the s in restons is pronounced
• the ending -ons is nasal
• the final s is not pronounced separately

So it does not sound like English rest-ons.

Yes, there is usually a liaison.

So nous restons au café is commonly pronounced with a z sound linking the words:

• restons au → restonz-au

This happens because restons ends in a normally silent s, and the next word au begins with a vowel sound.

Here it means the place, a café.

That is because of au, which shows location:

• au café = at the café

If you were talking about the drink, the structure would be different:

• Je bois un café. = I’m drinking a coffee.

So the grammar makes the meaning clear.