Nous allons dîner vers huit heures.

Because French often uses aller + infinitive to express the near future, much like to be going to + verb in English.

So:

• nous allons dîner = we are going to have dinner / we’re going to eat dinner

Here, allons is the nous form of aller (to go), and dîner stays in the infinitive.

Examples:

• Je vais partir. = I’m going to leave.
• Nous allons manger. = We’re going to eat.

Word for word, it may look like that, but in normal French this structure usually means we are going to have dinner rather than physical movement.

So in this sentence, aller + infinitive is grammatical future meaning, not usually we are going somewhere in order to dine.

If French speakers wanted to emphasize actual movement to a place, they would usually add a destination or use a different structure, for example:

• Nous allons au restaurant dîner. (less common wording)
• Nous allons dîner au restaurant. = We’re going to have dinner at the restaurant.

Dîner specifically means to have dinner / to eat the evening meal.

French has meal-specific verbs:

• déjeuner = to have lunch (or breakfast in some regions/traditional usage)
• dîner = to have dinner
• manger = to eat

So nous allons dîner is more precise than nous allons manger.
Manger just means to eat, while dîner tells you it is the dinner meal.

Vers means around or approximately when talking about time.

So:

• vers huit heures = around eight o’clock

It shows the time is not exact.

More examples:

• vers midi = around noon
• vers 18h = around 6 p.m.

Be careful: vers can also mean toward in other contexts:

• Il marche vers la gare. = He is walking toward the station.

French tells time using hour(s), so from 2 o’clock onward you use the plural heures.

Examples:

• une heure = one o’clock / one hour
• deux heures = two o’clock
• huit heures = eight o’clock

So vers huit heures literally looks like around eight hours, but naturally it means around eight o’clock.

French often expresses time without a direct equivalent of English at.

So:

• Nous allons dîner vers huit heures.

already means:

• We’re going to have dinner at around eight o’clock.

French simply uses the time expression directly. This is very common:

• Il arrive à midi. = He arrives at noon.
• Je pars demain matin. = I’m leaving tomorrow morning.

In this sentence, vers already introduces the approximate time, so no extra word is needed.

The circumflex in dîner is part of the standard spelling of the word.

It does not change the basic meaning here, but it is important for correct written French:

• dîner = to have dinner
• le dîner = dinner

Historically, circumflex accents often reflect older spellings, sometimes where an s used to exist in very old French forms. For learners, the main thing is simply to memorize the spelling.

A careful approximate pronunciation is:

Noo zah-lon dee-nay vehr weet uhr

A few helpful notes:

• Nous sounds like noo
• In nous allons, the final s of nous links to the next word because allons begins with a vowel:
  nous allons → noo-zah-lon
• dîner sounds like dee-nay
• huit heures usually includes linking as well:
  huit heures → roughly wee-tuhr

French pronunciation is smoother than English, so the words often flow together.

Yes. That is a very natural English translation.

French nous allons dîner can often be translated in different natural ways depending on context:

• We are going to have dinner around eight.
• We’re having dinner around eight.
• We’ll have dinner around eight.

Even though the French uses aller + infinitive, English may choose either a future form or a present-progressive style translation.

That is a very common learner question. In everyday spoken French, people often say:

• On va dîner vers huit heures.

This usually means the same thing as:

• Nous allons dîner vers huit heures.

The difference is mainly one of style and register:

• nous allons = more formal, more written, or more careful speech
• on va = very common in everyday conversation

So the sentence you have is completely correct, but in normal speech many French speakers would prefer On va dîner vers huit heures.

They mean slightly different things:

• à huit heures = at eight o’clock exactly
• vers huit heures = around eight o’clock / approximately eight

So vers makes the statement less precise. If dinner might begin at 7:50, 8:00, or 8:10, vers huit heures fits well.

Yes.

• dîner = the verb to have dinner
• le dîner = the noun dinner

Examples:

• Nous allons dîner. = We’re going to have dinner.
• Le dîner est prêt. = Dinner is ready.

This is very common in French: the same form may function as a verb or a noun depending on the article and sentence structure.