Ça m’embête quand le téléphone sonne pendant la séance.

Here ça means it or that in a general sense.

So Ça m’embête... literally means something like That bothers me... or It annoys me...

French often uses ça in very natural everyday sentences where English would use it.

M’ is the shortened form of me and it means me.

So:

• ça embête = that bothers / annoys
• ça m’embête = that bothers me / annoys me

The e in me disappears before a vowel sound, so me embête becomes m’embête.

This kind of shortening is very common in French:

• me aime → m’aime
• te appelle → t’appelle
• se ennuie → s’ennuie

Embêter usually means to bother, to annoy, or to be a nuisance to.

In this sentence, it has the sense of it annoys me or it bothers me.

It is a very common everyday verb, often a bit informal. It usually expresses mild irritation rather than something extremely serious.

For example:

• Ça m’embête. = That bothers me / That’s annoying.
• Tu m’embêtes. = You’re bothering me / You’re annoying me.

It is often similar to annoy or bother, but the exact strength depends on context.

In many cases, embêter feels like:

• to bother
• to be annoying
• to be a pain

It is often less formal than déranger and can sound more everyday and emotional.

So Ça m’embête quand le téléphone sonne... sounds natural and conversational: It bothers me when the phone rings...

Sonne is the present tense of sonner.

French often uses the present tense for things that happen generally or repeatedly:

• Ça m’embête quand le téléphone sonne. = It bothers me when the phone rings.

This means whenever / when it rings, not one single completed event.

If you used:

• sonnait = was ringing / used to ring
• a sonné = rang / has rung

the meaning would become more tied to a specific past situation.

So the present tense here expresses a general truth or repeated situation.

French often uses the definite article (le, la, les) in places where English might use the, a, or sometimes no article at all.

Here le téléphone means the phone in a general, natural way. It refers to the phone in the situation, not necessarily one specific phone being emphasized.

This is very normal in French:

• J’aime le chocolat. = I like chocolate.
• Le téléphone sonne. = The phone is ringing / The phone rings.

So le téléphone is just the standard way to say it here.

Quand means when.

It introduces the situation that causes the annoyance:

• Ça m’embête = It bothers me
• quand le téléphone sonne = when the phone rings

So the full structure is:

It bothers me when X happens.

This is a very common French pattern:

• Ça m’énerve quand il parle comme ça.
• Ça me fatigue quand il fait chaud.

Pendant means during, and la séance means the session, the meeting, the class, the appointment, or the screening, depending on context.

So pendant la séance means during the session.

The exact translation of séance depends on the situation:

• therapy session
• meeting
• lesson/class session
• cinema showing

So you choose the most natural English word from context.

French commonly puts the main idea first, then the when clause after it:

• Ça m’embête quand...
• Ça m’énerve quand...
• Je déteste quand...

This is very similar to English:

• It bothers me when...
• I hate it when...

You could also move the quand clause to the front in some contexts, but the version given is the most natural neutral order.

M’embête is pronounced as one smooth unit, because the words are linked closely together.

Roughly:

• m’ sounds like a quick m
• embête sounds approximately like ahn-bet

Important points:

• the m’ is attached directly to the next word
• ê in embête marks the vowel sound and often helps show the spelling/history of the word
• the final -te is pronounced, so embête is not silent at the end

A rough English approximation is: mahn-BET, though not perfectly.

Yes, often you can, but the tone changes a little.

• Ça m’embête = That bothers/annoys me
  More everyday, conversational, mildly emotional.

• Ça me dérange = That bothers me / That disturbs me / That is inconvenient for me
  Often a bit more neutral or polite.

So both can work, but embête feels more like personal annoyance, while dérange can sound slightly more restrained or formal.

No, it is not rude, but it is somewhat informal.

It is very common in spoken French and everyday writing. It is perfectly normal in conversation. However, in very formal situations, people might choose something like:

• déranger
• ennuyer
• gêner

So Ça m’embête is natural and common, but not especially formal.

Yes. In a sentence like this, quand often has the sense of whenever.

So:

• Ça m’embête quand le téléphone sonne pendant la séance.

can mean:

• It bothers me when the phone rings during the session.
• It bothers me whenever the phone rings during the session.

The French present tense plus quand often gives this repeated/general meaning.

There actually is a subject: le téléphone.

In French, every finite verb needs a subject, and here the subject of sonne is le téléphone.

So:

• le téléphone = subject
• sonne = verb

This part is straightforward:

le téléphone sonne = the phone rings / is ringing

Yes, grammatically you could say Cela m’embête..., but it sounds more formal and less natural in everyday speech.

• Ça m’embête... = normal spoken French
• Cela m’embête... = more formal or written

In ordinary conversation, ça is much more common.

The accent in embête is a circumflex accent: ê.

You mainly need to remember it as part of the correct spelling of the verb form:

• j’embête
• tu embêtes
• il/elle/on embête

The accent also helps signal the vowel sound in the word. For learners, the most important thing is simply to memorize that embêter is spelled with ê.