Shop names + the buying exchange
Shopping is tested as transactional exchanges, so learn shop nouns WITH their article. Feminine: la boulangerie, la pâtisserie, la boucherie, la pharmacie, la librairie (books — a false friend, NOT a library). Masculine: le supermarché, le grand magasin, le marché. The core exchange: Vous désirez? → Je voudrais... / Avez-vous...? → C'est combien? → Je le/la prends / c'est trop cher. Quantities take bare de: un kilo de, un paquet de.
Public services + use vous with staff
Public services extend shopping beyond retail — short exchanges at la poste (stamps), la banque (change money), l'office de tourisme (m, maps), le bureau des objets trouvés (lost property), le commissariat (report a theft). Register: always use vous with an assistant, clerk or officer: Pourriez-vous m'aider?, Je voudrais changer 50 euros, J'ai perdu mon passeport. Learn the request-and-response pattern, not isolated nouns.
Drawn from real examiner reports.
Use pratique, not "convenient"
Two shopping-vocabulary gaps recur. pratique (practical/convenient): candidates arguing online shopping is convenient did not know it and wrote English "convenient", scoring nothing. vêtements de marque (branded clothing): needed for fashion opinions but not known. Learn precise French — pratique, bon marché, cher/chère, de marque — not calques.
Digest, Clothes & shopping: *pratique* not known, English "convenient" used instead (w22 42 Q2 Task 4); *vêtements de marque* not well known (s22 Speaking Topic 3).
One unknown word sinks the answer
marché (market, a noun) is confused with marcher (to walk) — hearing au marché, candidates answer about walking. Reports also name single unfamiliar words that sink an item: caisse (till), essence (petrol, NOT food), guichet (counter). Missing one usually means a plausible but wrong distractor. Learn this word cluster as a set.
Digest, False friends & Reading: *marché/marcher* confused (s23 Speaking Topic 4; Reading 22 Q3(e)); *caisse, essence, guichet* named as words not well known; *essence* misread as a food word (s22 21 Q2(e)).
Agree and place the colour/size adjective
Describing an item is where agreement and placement errors recur. Agreement: une chemise blanc → une chemise blanche (feminine); des chaussures noires (feminine plural). Placement: colour/material adjectives go AFTER the noun — un pantalon noir, not un noir pantalon. BAGS adjectives (beau, joli, vieux, grand) go BEFORE. Named in the Accuracy checklist.
Digest, Grammar & accuracy traps: adjective agreement and placement named in the Writing Accuracy boilerplate across all four sittings, all Writing components (s22/w22/s23/w23).
Use vous with a shop assistant
In a shop or public service, address the assistant, clerk or officer with vous, never tu. On formal cards candidates also echo the vous verb they hear instead of conjugating to je: hearing Préférez-vous...? they answer je préférez not je préfère. Keep it first-person: Je voudrais..., Pourriez-vous m'aider?
Digest, Speaking role-play: register/conjugation slip on formal *vous* cards — candidates echo the *vous* form instead of conjugating to *je*, flagged every sitting (s22/w22/s23/w23).
Quantities take bare de
A quantity expression always takes bare de before the noun, never du/de la/des: un kilo de pommes (NOT un kilo des pommes), une bouteille d'eau, un paquet de biscuits, beaucoup de pain. This is separate from the partitive du pain / de la confiture used without a quantity word. Learn the quantity phrases as a block, each followed by de/d'.
After a negative, du/de la/des → de
A widespread misconception is that the partitive (du, de la, des) is fixed after a negative. In fact, after ne ... pas they collapse to bare de: Je voudrais du pain → Je ne veux pas de pain (NOT pas du pain); des pommes → pas de pommes. Candidates learn the affirmative forms, then wrongly keep the same article in a refusal.
Digest, Negation: faulty *ne ... pas* handling undermines clarity in Writing opinions (s23 42 Q2 Task 3) — the same weakness applies to partitive refusals in shopping dialogue.
A routine for a shopping role play
For a shopping or service task: (1) fix the scenario to narrow vocabulary; (2) fix the object, adjectives agreed and placed; (3) pick the transaction verb (Je voudrais..., Combien coûte...?); (4) keep register formal (vous); (5) watch the trap word (caisse, essence).
Mix tenses to lift Range
In Writing, vary the tense when the task allows: j'ai acheté (perfect), je voudrais (conditional), je vais acheter (near future). Mixing tenses on the same shopping topic accesses higher Range marks than a flat present-tense answer.
Write prices as words, not a symbol
Write an amount in full — trente-cinq euros — never a bare currency symbol, which is not French. Use the frame ça coûte / ça fait + number + euros, and C'est combien? to ask. Put euros after the number, as in the spoken transaction.
Shopping and public-service transactions are tested as short, functional exchanges across all four papers: a customer/citizen wants something, a shop assistant/clerk responds. Precision in vocabulary, register (vous) and agreement is what separates a strong answer from a weak one.
Shops (with gender):
| French | English |
|---|---|
| le grand magasin | department store |
| le supermarché | supermarket |
| la boulangerie | bakery |
| la pâtisserie | cake shop |
| la boucherie | butcher's |
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