Hotel Check-In

Arriving at a French hotel late in the evening is no time to run out of words. This topic carries you through the whole check-in, from the receptionist's first bonsoir to the moment you know exactly when breakfast starts.

What you will learn

The conversation follows a guest and a receptionist through an ordinary arrival at a small French hotel. You cover confirming a booking under your own name, saying how many nights you are staying and what kind of room you asked for, handing over a pièce d'identité, and finding out which floor you are on and where the elevator is. Then come the questions every traveler ends up asking at the desk: when breakfast runs, where the restaurant is, whether the Wi-Fi costs anything, and how late you can stay in the room on your last day. Dozens of useful words and phrases come with all of that, and the same language works at a guesthouse, a bed and breakfast, or any front desk where someone has to find your name on a list.

How the practice works

You watch a realistic exchange unfold the way a text conversation does, assembling sentences word by word from the words on screen. Every line is recorded by native French voices, so you are reading and listening at the same time, which is what a real reception desk asks of you. Sessions are short, and you can come back to a quiz whenever it suits you, on the train, in the airport, or the night before you arrive.

Why the third floor is not the third floor

French buildings do not count the way English-speaking ones do. The level at street height is the rez-de-chaussée, literally the level of the ground, and it gets no number at all. Counting starts with the floor above it, so a room on the troisième étage sits three flights up, which an American would call the fourth floor. Worth knowing before you decide to skip the elevator.