Nous passons la soirée à la maison.

Passons is in the present tense of passer.

• je passe
• tu passes
• il / elle / on passe
• nous passons
• vous passez
• ils / elles passent

In this sentence, the present tense is used to say what we are spending / we spend the evening doing, depending on context.

Yes, passer often means to pass, but it also commonly means to spend when talking about time.

So:

• passer la journée = to spend the day
• passer la soirée = to spend the evening
• passer la nuit = to spend the night

This is very natural French. It does not mean physically passing by the evening.

French usually uses an article where English often does not.

So French says:

• passer la soirée
• literally: to spend the evening

Even when English might just say spend the evening, French normally keeps la.

You will often see this with time expressions:

• le matin = in the morning
• l’après-midi = in the afternoon
• le soir = in the evening
• la nuit = at night

This is a very common question.

• le soir usually means the evening as a general time of day
• la soirée usually means the evening as a stretch of time, often with emphasis on how it is spent

In this sentence, la soirée fits well because we are talking about spending the evening.

Compare:

• Le soir, je lis. = In the evening, I read.
• Nous passons la soirée à la maison. = We spend the evening at home.

So soirée often feels more like the evening period / the evening’s activities.

À la maison is the normal French way to say at home.

Even though maison literally means house, the expression à la maison often means at home, not just physically inside a house.

• à la maison = at home
• dans la maison = in the house

So:

• Nous passons la soirée à la maison. = We spend the evening at home.
• Nous sommes dans la maison. = We are in the house.

The second one focuses more on location inside the building.

Yes, often you can, but the feeling is slightly different.

• à la maison = at home
• chez nous = at our place / at our home

In many situations, both are possible:

• Nous passons la soirée à la maison.
• Nous passons la soirée chez nous.

À la maison is a very common, neutral way to say at home.
Chez nous can sound a little more like at our place, with more focus on whose home it is.

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

So you could also hear:

• On passe la soirée à la maison.

Both mean the same thing. The difference is mainly register:

• nous passons = a bit more formal or careful
• on passe = very common in everyday speech

Learners should understand both.

A simple pronunciation guide is:

noo pah-sohn lah swah-ray ah lah meh-zohn

A few helpful points:

• nous sounds like noo
• passons has a nasal ending: -ons
• soirée sounds roughly like swah-ray
• maison ends with a nasal sound, not a strong n

Also note the natural flow:

• Nous passons
• la soirée
• à la maison

There is usually a smooth linking rhythm, even if you do not make every possible liaison strongly.

There can be, but you do not need to force unusual ones.

The most relevant place learners may notice a connection is in natural speech between words that flow together, but this sentence does not have a mandatory, very prominent liaison like some others do.

For example:

• nous avons has a very clear liaison: noo-zavon
• nous passons does not usually create that same kind of liaison sound

So the safest approach is simply to pronounce the sentence smoothly and naturally, without trying to add extra consonant sounds where they do not belong.

Yes. The French present tense can cover both ideas, depending on context.

So Nous passons la soirée à la maison could mean:

• We are spending the evening at home
• We spend the evening at home

In real situations, context tells you which one is intended. If someone is talking about tonight’s plan, it likely means We’re spending the evening at home.

Because the two languages organize this idea differently.

In English, at home is a fixed expression with no article.
In French, the equivalent expression is à la maison, which includes the article la.

This is something you usually just learn as a chunk:

• at home = à la maison

Trying to translate word for word will often sound unnatural.

Yes. Although maison literally means house, in many everyday expressions it corresponds to English home.

For example:

• Je reste à la maison. = I’m staying home.
• On mange à la maison. = We’re eating at home.
• Il est à la maison. = He’s at home.

So in this sentence, à la maison is best understood as at home, not just at the house.

Yes, but it means something slightly different.

• Nous passons la soirée à la maison. = We spend the evening at home.
• Nous passons une soirée à la maison. = We spend an evening at home.

La soirée usually refers to a specific evening, often the one already understood from context.
Une soirée is more indefinite: an evening.

So for We’re spending the evening at home, la soirée is the more natural choice.