Nous restons à la maison jusqu’au dîner.

Restons is the nous form of the verb rester in the present tense.

• rester = to stay, to remain
• nous restons = we stay / we are staying / we remain

So Nous restons means we stay or we’re staying.

In French, the present tense is often used for something happening now or for a plan that continues into the near future.

So Nous restons à la maison jusqu’au dîner can mean:

• We’re staying home until dinner
• We stay home until dinner

French does this very naturally, just like English sometimes does in sentences such as We’re leaving tomorrow.

Here, rester means to stay.

It suggests remaining in a place rather than going somewhere else.

So:

• Nous restons à la maison = We are staying at home

It is not the same as être (to be).
Nous sommes à la maison means We are at home, while Nous restons à la maison means We stay / are staying at home.

À la maison is the normal French way to say at home or sometimes home, depending on context.

Literally, it looks like at the house, but you should learn it as the fixed expression at home.

Examples:

• Je suis à la maison. = I’m at home.
• On reste à la maison. = We’re staying home.

English drops the article in at home, but French does not.

Because à la maison usually means at home in the general sense.

Dans la maison means inside the house physically, and it focuses more on location inside the building.

Compare:

• Nous restons à la maison. = We’re staying home.
• Nous restons dans la maison. = We’re staying inside the house.

So à la maison is the natural choice here.

Jusqu’au means until the.

It comes from:

• jusqu’à = until / up to
• le dîner = the dinner

When à is followed by le, they contract:

• à + le = au

So:

• jusqu’à le dîner → jusqu’au dîner

The apostrophe is part of jusqu’à.

French often drops a vowel before another vowel sound.
Here:

• jusque becomes jusqu’ before à

So:

• jusque + à → jusqu’à

Then:

• jusqu’à + le dîner → jusqu’au dîner

This is just standard French spelling.

French often uses an article where English does not.

Here, au = à + le, so jusqu’au dîner is literally until the dinner, but the natural English translation is simply until dinner.

This is very common. You should not try to match article use word for word between French and English.

Not always in every French-speaking region.

In standard modern French in France, dîner usually means the evening meal: dinner.

But in some regions or other French-speaking areas, meal words can vary:

• déjeuner / dîner may shift depending on local usage

For most learners, the safest understanding is:

• dîner = dinner (evening meal)

A simple pronunciation guide is:

noo res-TON ah la meh-ZON zhus-KOH dee-NAY

A few points:

• nous sounds like noo
• restons ends with a nasal sound: -ton
• maison ends with a nasal sound: -zon
• jusqu’au sounds roughly like zhus-koh
• dîner sounds like dee-nay

The final s in nous and restons is not pronounced.

Yes. In everyday spoken French, people often use on instead of nous.

So you could say:

• On reste à la maison jusqu’au dîner.

This means the same thing: We’re staying home until dinner.

The difference is mostly register:

• nous restons = a bit more formal or careful
• on reste = very common in conversation

No, not in normal French.

French usually requires the subject pronoun, so you say:

• Nous restons à la maison...

not just

• Restons à la maison...

unless Restons... is being used as a command meaning Let’s stay home...

So in this sentence, nous must be there.

They are different tenses.

• restons = present tense → we stay / we are staying
• restions = imperfect tense → we were staying / we used to stay

So the sentence given is about a present or current situation, not a past one.

Here, dîner is a noun meaning dinner.

French also has the verb dîner meaning to have dinner / to dine.

So the same word can be:

• un dîner = a dinner / dinner
• dîner = to have dinner

In jusqu’au dîner, the article au shows clearly that it is a noun here.