Pour demain, nous allons cuisiner des lentilles avec des navets et une aubergine.

French often puts a time expression at the start of the sentence to set the scene first. So Pour demain, nous allons cuisiner... sounds like the speaker is introducing the plan for tomorrow.

You could also say Nous allons cuisiner des lentilles avec des navets et une aubergine demain, but starting with Pour demain gives a little more emphasis to the schedule or menu planning.

Because demain is an adverb meaning tomorrow, not a noun like the tomorrow. French does not use an article with it.

So:

• demain = tomorrow
• not le demain

Nous allons cuisiner is the near future construction: aller + infinitive. It is very common in French and often works like English are going to cook.

So:

• nous allons cuisiner = we are going to cook

French could also use the simple future:

• nous cuisinerons

Both are correct, but nous allons cuisiner is very common in everyday speech.

Because in aller + infinitive, the present tense of aller helps create a future meaning.

So even though allons is literally present tense, the whole structure means something future:

• nous allons cuisiner = we are going to cook

This is very similar to English we are going to cook, where are is present tense but the meaning is future.

French usually keeps articles before nouns much more often than English does. So where English may say cook lentils, French naturally says cuisiner des lentilles.

That is why you see:

• des lentilles
• des navets
• une aubergine

In French, leaving out the articles here would sound incomplete.

Because des is the plural indefinite article, while une is the singular feminine indefinite article.

So:

• des lentilles = some lentils
• des navets = some turnips
• une aubergine = an eggplant

The sentence is talking about multiple lentils, multiple turnips, and one eggplant.

A useful extra note: if French wanted to talk about eggplant as an uncounted ingredient rather than one whole eggplant, it could say de l'aubergine instead.

They are plural because the sentence means more than one lentil and more than one turnip.

With lentilles, French very often uses the plural when talking about the food in general, because a dish normally contains many lentils, not one single lentil.

With navets, the plural simply tells you there is more than one turnip.

Yes. In everyday spoken French, on va cuisiner is extremely common and often sounds more natural than nous allons cuisiner.

So these are both fine:

• Nous allons cuisiner...
• On va cuisiner...

The difference is mainly style:

• nous is a bit more formal or careful
• on is more common in conversation

Yes, a few very common ones:

1. Liaison in nous allons
The s in nous is normally silent, but before allons it is pronounced as a z sound:

• nous allons sounds like noo-zah-lon

2. Final letters are often silent

• lentilles: the final s is silent
• navets: the final s is silent, and the final t is also silent
• aubergine: the final e is silent

3. A few word sounds to notice

• cuisiner begins with a sound close to kwee-
• aubergine has the j sound heard in English measure

So the sentence has several silent endings, which is very typical in French.