A lot of our students here at LingoCulture are looking to learn some basic French phrases for travel. And why not, since even knowing a bit of French travel vocab can take you far! With this in mind, in today’s post we’ll focus on how to navigate hotels in French.
Before we even get into vocab, we’ll start out by introducing the main types of lodging that you’ll encounter in France. Once you know your French lodging options, then we’ll get into the details on French hotels. We’ll look at what to expect in a typical hotel room, and then get into all the essential French hotel vocab so you can manage each step of your stay.
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So whether you’re looking for a dorm bed in a hostel, or luxury suite at a five-star hotel, read on for all the necessary French travel phrases and vocabulary for hotels!
We’ll just warn you that this post is super long but filled with useful info, so you may want to bookmark it for quick reference whenever you’re booking a French hotel or even for while you’re checking in. Don’t worry, everything is organized with easy headings so you can find what you’re looking for!
What types of lodging are there in France?
Today’s lesson is all about hotel vocabulary, but these French travel phrases can be just as useful if you stay at the other types of lodging found in the country. Before we get into our sections on vocab, let’s just see what options we have for hotels in France.
We’ll start with the common French lodging options where international travelers are likely to stay, and then move on to the other ones which cater more to domestic or regional vacationers. If you’re planning on spending a significant amount of time in France it’s a good idea to consider broadening your French hotel options beyond the standard fare, while also knowing the details of what each one entails!
Un hostel, Un auberge collective
You’re probably familiar with hostels. This word has been adopted into French, essentially replacing the older concept of youth hostel, or auberge de jeunesse. Today, the formal term is un auberge collective, but everyone just calls it un hostel. Even the English pronunciation is maintained, with the aspirated h!
Hostels offer accommodation by the bed rather than by the room. Beds are distributed in dormitories, sometimes segregated by gender. Bathrooms might be in the rooms, though often it’s necessary to leave your room and access them from the hallway. There’s usually a decent common area where travelers can meet and hang out, and group activities or excursions are often organized by hostel staff. Many hostels offer breakfast, and some even have bars or restaurants.
Hostels are a great option for meeting other travelers, especially when traveling solo. They’re also among the most affordable options in most French cities. Paris is overflowing with hostel options, while some smaller cities may only have one or two. If you’re ok with trading some privacy for a reasonable price and a chance at some social interaction, give hostels a try.
Un hôtel
This is exactly the same thing you’re familiar with in English. Un hôtel generally has a reception, a bunch of private rooms that you can rent by the night, and any assortment of additional amenities.
Big hotel chains are ubiquitous across France, but there’s also an amazing variety of locally-owned hotels that often have a lot of history and character. In fact, approximately 80% of French hotels are independently owned!
Hôtels all have a few basics that are ubiquitous across the entire category: the rooms are private, linens and basic bathroom products are provided, and a cleaning service is included in the price. From there, every establishment can offer its own selection of additional services.
French hôtels are rated based on a scale of five stars, with three stars being the average for a hotel that’s clean, comfortable, and relatively affordable. Two-star hotels are often just fine too, but with older décor and maybe smaller rooms or a lack of modern nicities like elevators or decent soundproofing. Four-star hotels are more sumptuous, with the price tag to match. Only about 3.5% of French hotels have five stars.
Other meanings of Hôtel in French
Since our post today is all about French hotels, it’s important to point out that the French word hôtel also has a couple of related meanings that are unrelated to renting out rooms to travelers.
The first is an administrative building, so the hôtel de ville, for example, is where you’ll go to access many city services, while the hôtel de région is the administrative headquarters for a region.
The other use of the French hôtel is for a grand private residence, generally referred to as un hôtel particulier.
The head attendant at such a residence is known as the maître d’hôtel. The English equivalent would be traditionally have been head butler. The title of maître d’hôtel is now more common at fancy restaurants, referring to the head of service or even lead purser. This use of the word has been adopted into English in a truncated form, as simply maître d’.
Un meublé de tourisme
This is the formal name for a self-contained home that’s rented out short-term to tourists. This formula took off with the advent of Airbnb, and it’s flourished on a number of other platforms in the meantime. The category of un meublé de tourisme therefore now encompasses houses and apartments from Paris to Provence.
Just like anywhere, the quality of these lodgings can vary wildly from one to another. Local rules and regulations keep evolving in response to a number of factors, so even the hosts might not always know if they’re within the latest legal framework. Nonetheless, renting a home from a local often provides a great taste of the local neighborhood while contributing to their livelihood.
Be careful, since historic French approaches to renting out vacation homes have spilled over onto the international booking platforms. Old-school hosts may still insist that guests bring their own bedding, for example, or do 100% of the cleaning. Don’t get caught by surprise if you’re not traveling around France with your own pillows and sheets!
Une résidence de tourisme, Un appart-hôtel
This is sort of a combination of the previous two concepts. It’s not a hotel, in that there are often no common amenities and even the reception only keeps sporadic business hours. But it’s a whole building of individual bare-bones apartments rented out solely to short-term guests.
There are often seemingly-arbitrary rules that potential guests need to respect, and securing a reservation may be overly complicated, but staying in an appartement-hôtel is often a good option in a French city for the extra space and private amenities each unit offers. And unlike most meublés de tourisme, they’re run professionally like hôtels. So, as long as you read the fine print, you shouldn’t have any unexpected surprises.
Chez l’habitant
This is a classic French term for staying with a local inhabitant. In older English, you might have said that the hosts would take boarders. This practice still exists in France for relatively short-term stays, but it’s still fairly common for students or others who need a few months to figure out a longer-term lodging option.
When you stay chez l’habitant, you won’t forget that you’re really staying in somebody else’s home. You may have your own room, and you can use the bathroom and maybe even have access to the kitchen or other spaces sometimes, but don’t make yourself too at home.
This historical French concept of staying chez l’habitant has permeated contemporary interpretations of shared lodgings on platforms like Airbnb. So although the context is obviously unique with each individual host, don’t be surprised if there’s not much of a wider welcome beyond your bedroom if you choose to stay in a shared dwelling in France.
Chambres d’hôtes
This was the welcoming version of staying with hosts before Airbnb shook things up. France actually had a very vibrant network of chambres d’hôtes throughout the country, whose charm indeed came directly from the hosts, or hôtes. The English equivalent was a bed and breakfast, or B&B.
By definition, a chambre d’hôtes can have just a handful of private rooms for guests, and the hosts must also live on-site. Breakfast is always included as part of the overnight stay, usually served family-style to all of the guests together and often including homemade breads and jams and other local fare.
Chambres d’hôtes are traditionally passion projects by their owners, often in historic manor houses or even châteaux. They cater more to reflective getaways among couples looking for charm and history, as opposed to simply serving as a place to sleep. Expect to hear the story of the building and the grounds from your host, and to engage in conversation with the other couples around the breakfast table.
Chambres d’hôtes are still present in today’s French hotel landscape, but they’ve clearly been diluted over the past couple of decades as global online booking platforms mixed them in with all the other overnight options. They may still be found on those platforms, but doing specific searches for chambres d’hôtes is a better bet if this is the sort of getaway that you’re looking for.
Gîte
A gîte is a vacation home, usually in some picturesque natural environment. The term has been used more broadly to encompass small hotels, but in general it should be thought of as an individual house to accommodate guests who have the whole place to themselves for the duration of their stay. Think of it as a cottage rental.
In many cases, single gîtes are owned by a single person or family, so they’re each very unique. Traditionally, finding out about a good gîte to rent for your vacation relied a lot on word of mouth, with the best ones always fully booked anyway. Online platforms have changed this landscape over the past decades, but other old practices remain.
It’s still very common to pay a non-refundable deposit upon reserving the gîte, and to sign a detailed contract describing the obligations of both the renters and the owners. It’s rare to rent gîtes by the night or even the weekend in high season, with weekly rentals being the norm. And be clear on what’s included or not: it’s common that guests are still required to bring all their own linens, and sometimes even their own kitchen tools. A thorough cleaning may also be obligatory upon departure, since cleaning is rarely included. If there are energy-intensive facilities such as a hot tub or a fireplace, it’s likely that their use is subject to an additional fee too.
French gîtes remain a classic option for families and groups of friends looking for a week-long lodging option for a vacation in nature. And what’s the difference between un gîte and a chambre d’hôte in France? You’re on your own in a gîte, whereas the warm welcome provided by the hosts is a big part of staying at a chambre d’hôte. (Note that in Québec, however, un gîte touristique actually follows the French definition of a chambre d’hôte!)
Gîte d’étape
In our previous explanation, we alluded to the fact that the term gîte is often used for other types of lodging than a cottage rental. Pay attention to the descriptions offered by anyone offering a gîte to make sure it aligns with what you’re looking for! Aside from small rural hotels that call themselves gîtes, the other common type of lodging that uses the term is the gîte d’étape.
Gîtes d’étape have their origins in pilgrimage routes. Étape here translates as stage, signifying the distance the pilgrims usually travel in one day. The gîtes d’étape form a network along pilgrimage routes where, at the end of each day’s travel, pilgrims could look forward to a place to shelter for the night. These are still often run by religious orders, especially along the popular pilgrimage routes leading to Santiago-de-Compostela.
Don’t expect much luxury if you stay at a gîte d’étape, but expect a lot of authenticity. You’ll likely be staying in a big same-sex dormitory with a bunch of other long-distance hikers, and it’s possible that you’ll be invited to join the whole group for a simple dinner around long banquet tables. Expect to pitch in at mealtime; there is no wait staff to serve you, but rather a handful of veterans directing you. Breakfast and check-out are often timed with the sun, so don’t plan on sleeping in.
This sort of gîte d’étape is aimed at a particular clientèle: their mission is to facilitate the progress of travelers walking across the country for weeks or even months. Amenities are spartan, but so are the prices. If you show up in a car, it’s possible that you’ll pay extra fees or even be denied custom. But if you’re crossing France on your own power, whether as a religious pilgrim, a secular hiker, or even a cycle tourer, these historic gîtes d’étapes are a very suitable option.
Finally, as we’ve mentioned several times now with the term gîte, the concept of un gîte d’étape has gradually been adopted by other types of lodging than what we’ve just described here. Many establishments describe themselves as gîtes d’étapes when they cater to long-distance road trippers who need to stop driving for the night too. These still probably have plenty of charm as well!
Un camping
In France, un camping is a type of rustic all-inclusive resort popular with families in summer destinations. The lodging on offer is usually a stand-alone minimalist prefabricated building, known affectionately as un mobil-home, with a master bedroom, a basic kitchen, some bunk beds or a fold-out sofa, and a functional bathroom. There’s always an outdoor terrasse. They’re usually rented by the week, they often don’t include linens or even dishes, and the guests need to do the cleaning before they leave.
The cheapest lodging options at campings don’t have plumbing, so guests use the common toilet and shower facilities known as des blocs sanitaires (just bring your own toilet paper!). This is also the solution for anyone with a recreational vehicle, known as un camping car, since many campings don’t have direct water and drain hookups. Still, it’s frequent to have access to an electric outlet for your van, as well as a wastewater dump point somewhere on the camping grounds.
At any camping there are often activities for kids during the days and evenings, there’s usually a restaurant or two along with a bar for the parents, and beaches or amusement parks are inevitably nearby. Les campings are a huge part of the summer vacation scene across France, catering almost exclusively to families.
If you just want to pitch a tent somewhere, you’ll need to go to un camping. Rates for tent camping are usually very reasonable, and you still get access to the amenities. Wild camping in France is not very straightforward like in some countries. Wild parking for camper vans is everywhere though!
Un village de vacances
Un village de vacances is similar in concept to un camping, but in buildings that are more durable than mobil-homes. We won’t go so far as to consider it a resort in the English-language sense, because it’s not exactly about luxury. But just like un camping, it’s a big site with all the amenities to sleep and eat and relax and keep the kids entertained, usually in a beautiful setting.
Un refuge de montagne
Normally, you can’t drive to a refuge de montagne. These are relatively rustic mountain lodges, high in the mountains at key intervals throughout France’s vast network of mountain trails. It takes some planning to know where the refuges are and how to reserve each one, but it’s worth it!
In general, des refuges have a handful of rooms with a bunch of bunk beds, and a big common room with picnic tables. There may be some running water or cooking infrastructure, depending on the refuge. There’s usually also a gear room. Toilets are often in outhouses. In national parks, the only place where it’s permitted to pitch a tent is in the vicinity of the refuges.
In peak summer hiking season, most such refuges are staffed. You should still try to reserve your stay at these refuges gardés ahead of time, because they’re often at capacity. When staffed, you can usually buy cooked meals and sometimes even other luxuries like cold beer. They usually offer breakfast and picnic lunches as well.
In the off-season, some refuges are locked up entirely, while others are left open for the use of hikers. These refuges non-gardés still often have basics like running water, cooking gas, and firewood for the stove, but it depends on the refuge.
Regardless of whether you visit a refuge gardé or non-gardé, you should plan to bring your own sleeping bag. There may be a blanket on each bed, and maybe even a pillow. Do your research ahead of time.
Prices for spending the night in a refuge vary, but are quite reasonable compared with hotels in the city. Payment is often expected even if you sleep in your tent next to the refuge, or if you just spend an hour there making some hot tea. Try to bring cash with the right change, especially for the refuges non-gardés where you slip your payment into a box in an envelope.
Refuges de montagne are a very particular category of lodging in France, and they’re a key part of the travel infrastructure for exploring the mountain regions!
Un hébergement insolite
This isn’t a specific type of French lodging, but rather a category that the French like to bestow on certain lodging options. Un hébergement insolite can be translated simply as an unusual lodging option, but really, the weirder the better. We’ve chosen to include it in our list because it’s a fairly popular badge of honor that some establishments use to differentiate themselves!
Examples of hébergements insolites could be a treehouse, a cave dwelling, a clear geodesic dome, a lighthouse, or a windmill, to name a few. Houseboats are often also lumped into this category too, though they’re not necessarily that unusual.
If you’re looking for something out of the ordinary, un hébergement insolite is probably what you’ll end up with. Just make sure you’re still getting the basics you’ll want for a comfortable stay, since some such options seem to forgo the essentials in the quest for uniqueness!
French hotel rooms: What to expect
On the one hand, you can expect hotel rooms in France to be similar to hotel rooms anywhere else in the world. This is certainly the case in a lot of ways, but there are some subtle differences between French hotel rooms and those in other places like North America, for example. With this in mind, let’s just go over a few of the unique details you can expect from a French hotel.
How many beds in a French hotel room?
A comfortable sleeping arrangement is obviously the fundamental reason for renting a hotel room. But how many beds are in a French hotel room? Unlike in North America, where many hotel rooms have two big beds by default, hotel rooms in France just have one bed.
Sometimes the establishment will offer the option between two single beds or one double bed. In this case, it’s because the one bed is actually made of two single beds pushed together, and the only thing that changes is the choice of sheets. When you choose two single beds, this often also involves a slight separation between the two beds so that the two travel companions aren’t sleeping face to face. However, in many cases the beds aren’t even separated physically because the headboard and bedside tables are affixed to the wall.
Keep this in mind if you’re considering sharing a hotel room with your mom, your brother, or your colleague, or if you’ve signed up for a group tour in France where you’re sharing a room with another traveler on the tour! Sure, you each have your own comforter, but the space between the beds is often insufficient to even walk between.
If you’re looking for a room with two double beds, American-style, you’ll need to search for a group room or a family room. Since it’s possible to sleep four people in such a room, or to accommodate four couchages in French, this arrangement will never be proposed if you’re just looking to share a room between two people.
How big are beds in French hotel rooms?
The concept of a king-size bed does not exist in France. Bed sizes are generally noted by their width in centimeters, though single beds are often also called twin.
If you book a single room, you may indeed find just a single twin bed in your room, at 90cm wide. Hopefully you weren’t planning on inviting someone back to your room for the night! Frequently you’ll nonetheless end up with a double bed when you travel solo, but double-check ahead of time if you think you might want to share your bed after all.
A room for two will usually have a bed that’s 140cm or 160cm, corresponding to the American double and queen-size.
In hotels where they furnish their rooms with pushed-together single beds in case clients ask for separate beds, the individual single beds are either 80cm or 90cm. In this case, the full-sized bed for two will be either 160cm or 180cm, corresponding to the American queen-size and king-size.
In hotels where the bed size is 160cm or 180cm, they’ll probably vaunt how big the bed is by referring to it as un grand lit deux places or un très grand lit deux places.
Is it possible to put an extra bed in a French hotel room?
In many cases, the size of the hotel room will define whether or not it’s even possible to add an additional bed, called un lit d’appoint. This detail is often clearly stated in the room description. If it’s possible, expect to pay an additional fee for the extra bed.
Some French hotel rooms even come with a spare bed ready to deploy, whether in a fold-out sofa, a folding bed in a closet, or a bunk bed over the main bed. In these cases, too, you can expect to pay an additional fee if you actually use the extra bed. You need to break the seal on a garment bag containing the bedding and make the bed yourself. Still, this is often a good solution for friends or family members who want to share a hotel room without necessarily sleeping in the same bed! It’s also ideal for families with one kid.
The same restraints exist for adding a baby bed or a crib, respectively called un lit bébé or a un berceau. Your hotel will let you know if it’s possible to provide one, or even to physically accommodate yours in the room if you travel with a folding model. Otherwise you may need to consider finding a bigger room, or sharing the double bed with your child.
Are there family suites?
For families with more than one kid, it’s often a challenge to find single hotel rooms that can accommodate everyone. You’ll need to search specifically for une chambre familiale, which will have one double bed and one or more additional beds. The price for these bigger rooms can increase significantly!
Another option is to book a room for the parents, and another room for the kids. This assumes the kids can be left to their own devices at night though! Otherwise each parent has their own room, each with a kid or two. Though it’s common in many North American hotels, the vast majority of French hotels do not offer the option of pass-through doors linking adjacent rooms.
Family travel in French cities is often difficult and expensive for these reasons, which explains why many French families opt for the other vacation lodging we described above.
Are meals included in French hotels?
Most hotels in France offer at least a breakfast option to their overnight guests. In many cases the breakfast is included in the price of the stay, whereas it’s often optional with an additional fee.
Depending on the region, it’s also very common to have the option of half-board or full-board, known as démi-pension and pension complète. Certain establishments, particularly in popular destinations or during peak season, will only offer overnight reservations that include some or all meals. Don’t worry too much about being well-fed if this is the case: it’s usually applied at hotel-restaurants where there’s a strong focus on the food.
What is the taxe de séjour?
The last particularity we’ll mention before looking more at vocab is the local tourist tax. This exists in a lot of countries, and France is no exception. The taxe de séjour is a local tax that’s levied per person, per night, in any official short-term lodging. It’s a flat rate based on the category of the lodging, not on the price of your stay, and it’s usually around a couple of Euros.
What’s particular about the taxe de séjour is that it’s rarely included in the price you paid to book the hotel in the first place. So even though you may have planned ahead and paid everything in advance, expect the receptionist to ask for an extra €4,20 or €13,60 or whatever they come up with!
Hotel French: Vocabulary lists
So far in this post, we’ve spent a lot of time getting you familiar with what you can expect from French hotels, both in terms of the types of lodging options and the types of rooms that most hotels offer.
For the rest of the post we’ll focus on essential French for travel related to hotels, broken down into an assortment of useful lists. We’ll start with the beds themselves, as we described in the previous section. Then we’ll move on to other elements you’ll find in a French hotel room, other amenities that the hotel might offer, as well as some useful vocab for navigating to your hotel. We’ll even include a dedicated section related to hostels, since many French hostel terms don’t necessarily cross over to hotels.
Since most of the French hotel vocab consists of nouns, we include each word’s gender either with an article or as (m) or (f) after the noun. We use the indefinite article by default (un, une), but we put the definite articles (le, la) or even the partitive articles (du, de la) with the words where these are most commonly used (these are all explained in detail in our post on French articles). For adjectives, we include the feminine ending in parentheses.
These lists are quite exhaustive! If you’re looking for the French word for anything in your hotel room, it’s probably here!
French bed vocabulary
In our last section, we gave a lot of detail about the realities of sleeping arrangements in French hotel rooms. We introduced many of these words in those descriptions, so here we present the full list. In contrast to our other lists, we omitted the article for all mentions of un lit (it’s masculine) to simply reduce clutter within the table.
| bed | un lit |
| double bed | lit deux places, lit 140cm |
| queen-size bed | grand lit deux places, lit 160cm |
| single bed, twin bed | lit simple, lit une place, lit twin, lit 90cm |
| sleeping spot | un couchage |
| extra bed | lit d’appoint |
| bunk beds | lits superposés |
| hide-a-bed | lit escamotable |
| sofa bed | canapé lit, divan lit |
| futon | un clic clac |
| folding bed | lit pliable |
| baby bed | lit bébé |
| portable folding baby bed | lit parapluie |
| crib | un bérceau |
Hotel linens in French
Here we present the vocab for various linens in a hotel room, from sheets to towels to curtains.
| mattress | un matelas |
| pillow | un oreiller |
| long tube pillow | un traversin |
| bedsheet | un drap |
| duvet cover | une housse de couette |
| pillow case | une taie d’oreiller |
| comforter, duvet | une couette |
| blanket | une couverture |
| decorative blanket over the foot of the bed | un édredon |
| towel | une serviette |
| bath towel | une serviette de bains |
| hand towel | une serviette à mains |
| beach towel | une serviette de plage |
| kitchen towel | un torchon |
| bath mat | un tapis de douche |
| window | une fenêtre |
| curtain | un rideau |
| blind | un store |
Hotel room furnishings in French
We’ve already learned how to talk specifically about the bed, the sheets, the towels, and so on. Here we’ll see the other fixed elements you’ll find in a French hotel room.
| bedside table | une table de chevet |
| desk | un bureau |
| desk chair | une chaise de bureau |
| chair | une chaise |
| armchair | un fauteuil |
| couch, sofa | un divan, un sofa |
| lighting | l’éclairage (m) |
| switch | un intérrupteur |
| light fixture | un luminaire |
| lamp | une lampe |
| light bulb | une ampoule |
| fluorescent light | un néon |
| air conditioning, AC | l’air climatisée (f), la clim |
| heating, heater | le chauffage |
| fan | un ventilateur |
| telephone, phone | un téléphone |
| television, TV | la télévision, la télé |
| remote control | une télécommande |
| wifi code | le code wifi |
| plug | une prise |
| iron | un fer à repasser |
| ironing board | une planche à repasser |
| cabinet | une armoire |
| closet | un placard |
| hangar | un cintre |
| safe | un coffre-fort |
| coffee maker | une cafétière |
| kettle | une bouilloire |
| kitchen sink | un évier de cuisine |
| kitchen trash can | la poubelle de cuisine |
| wastepaper bin | un corbeil |
| recycling bin | un bac de recyclage |
French hotel bathroom elements
Moving from the hotel room to its bathroom, here are the various components of a hotel bathroom in French. Don’t worry, we’ll cover the consumables in the next section.
| toilet | la toilette, le WC |
| bidet | le bidet |
| mirror | un miroir |
| bathroom sink | le lavabo |
| tap | un robinet |
| drain | le drain |
| plug, stopper | un bouchon |
| bathtub | une baignoire |
| shower | une douche |
| shower head | une pomme de douche |
| shower curtain | un rideau de douche |
| hot water | l’eau chaude (f) |
| cold water | l’eau froide (f) |
| hook | un crochet |
| towel heater | un séche-serviettes |
| hair dryer | un sèche-cheveux |
| clothesline | une corde à linge |
| clothes-drying rack | un étendoir à linge |
| trash can | une poubelle |
| toilet brush | une brosse de toilette |
| toilet plunger | une ventouse de toilette |
Bathroom products in French hotels
Do you like finding an assortment of mini bottles of shampoo and moisturizer in your hotel bathroom? Indeed, some French hotel rooms have nice little bottles, some have little foil packets, and some have big wall-mounted dispensers. Here’s our list of French hotel vocab for all the little extras you might find in the bathroom.
| soap | le savon |
| liquid soap | du savon liquide |
| shampoo | le shampoing |
| moisturizing cream | le crème hydratant |
| perfume, cologne | eau de toilette (f) |
| deodorizer | le désodorisant |
| tissues | des mouchoirs (f) |
| squeegee | une raclette |
| shower cap | un bonnet de douche |
| slippers | des pantoufles (f) |
| bathrobe | un peignoir (m) |
| laundry bag | un sac à linge |
| toilet paper, TP | du papier toilette, du PQ |
Other products that might be available at reception
Did you forget your toothpaste at yesterday’s hotel, or is a button about to fall off of your dress shirt? Most hotels have a selection of basic toiletries or other such necessities that can be purchased for a reasonable price, sometimes even in vending machines. Let’s see some of these products that you may want to ask for at your French hotel’s reception.
| toothbrush | une brosse à dents |
| toothpaste | la dentifrice |
| razor | un rasoir |
| shaving cream | du crème à raser |
| deodorant | du déodorant |
| ear plugs | des bouchons d’oreille (m), des boules Quies (f) |
| sewing kit | un kit de couture |
| condoms | des préservatifs (f), des capotes (f) |
| feminine hygiene products | des produits (m) d’hygiène feminine |
| pads | des serviettes (f) hygièniques |
| tampons | des tampons (m) |
| painkiller | du paracétamol |
| power adapter | un adaptateur |
| USB plug | une prise USB |
| power bar | une multiprise |
French hotel terms for checking in and paying
Now that we’ve moved on from our hotel room and we’re at reception, let’s start getting into our hotel French for the rest of the establishment. We’ll start with the basic terms for checking in and out, as well as all the terminology surrounding payment.
While you’re at reception, it’s likely that you’ll appreciate some other specific lessons of ours. Check out our posts on saying hello, saying please, saying thank you, talking about days and months in French, telling time, and counting.
| reservation | une réservation |
| a stay | un séjour |
| check-in | l’enregistrement (m) |
| check-out | le check-out |
| early check-out | le check-out anticipé |
| late check-out | le check-out tardif |
| extended check-out | le check-out prolongé |
| availability | disponibilité (f) |
| fully-booked | complet |
| payment | le paiement |
| bank card | une carte bancaire |
| hands-free payment | le paiement sans contacte |
| payment terminal | un lecteur de cartes |
| printed terminal receipt | ticket de caisse |
| bill, detailed receipt | la facture |
| discount | un rabais |
| charge | un frais |
| supplemental fee | un frais supplémentaire |
| cleaning fee | un frais de nettoyage |
| penalty | une pénalité |
| a fine | une amende |
Names for different French hotel keys
Here we have a specific vocab section on the different ways a given hotel might have you acess the property or the room.
| key | la clé, la clef |
| magnetic keycard | la carte magnétique |
| magnetic keyfob | le badge |
| entry code | le code d’entrée |
| doorbell, buzzer | la sonnette |
| keypad | le digicode |
| intercom | l’interphone (m) |
| lockbox for keys | un coffre à clés |
Words for French hotel personnel and guests
Since we’re here at reception, this is a good place to become familiar with how to refer to all the different people you may see at a French hotel. Check out our related posts for full lessons on occupations in French, family members in French, and animals in French.
| receptionist | le/la réceptionniste |
| manager | le gérant, la gérante |
| valet | le valet |
| concierge | le/la concierge |
| porter | le bagagiste |
| security guard | le gardien de sécurité, la gardienne de sécurité |
| night watch | le veilleur de nuit, la veilleuse de nuit |
| delivery person | un livreur, une livreuse |
| room attendant | le préposé aux chambres, la préposée aux chambres |
| cleaning woman | la femme de ménage |
| cleaning man | l’homme de ménage |
| gardener | le jardinier, la jardinière |
| cook, chef | le cuisinier, la cuisinière |
| host | un hôte, une hôte |
| guest | un hôte, une hôte |
| traveler | un voyageur, une voyageuse |
| client | un client, une cliente |
| adult | un adulte |
| child | un enfant |
| baby | une bébé |
| pet | un animal de compagnie |
| service animal | un animal de service |
Yes, you saw that correctly… un hôte can be used to refer to both the hosts, like we saw in the chambre d’hôtes above, and to refer to the guests. Context is key to keep them clear, but we admit they’re easily confused!
Hotel facilities in French
From here, it’s time to check out the rest of the hotel. Whether you’re inquiring ahead of time if the hotel has a pool or an aiport shuttle, or the receptionist is describing to you what they have on offer, it’s likely on this list of hotel facilities in French.
| main entrance | l’entrée principale (f) |
| exit | la sortie |
| corridor | le corridor |
| staircase | l’escalier |
| stairwell | la cage d’escalier |
| elevator | l’ascenseur (m) |
| toilets | les sanitaires (f) |
| unloading zone | aire de déchargement (f) |
| airport shuttle | une navette pour l’aéroport |
| luggage room | une bagagerie, le local à bagages |
| bike storage room | un local à vélos |
| ski storage room | un local à skis |
| conference room | une salle de conférence |
| pool | la piscine |
| fitness center | la salle d’entrainement |
| patio | la terrasse |
| rooftop deck | la terrasse sur le toit |
| children’s playground | une aire de jeu pour enfants |
| smoker’s area | une zone pour fumeurs |
| smoke-free hotel | hôtel sans fumée |
French hotel parking options
We didn’t include parking in our last list of facilities since there are enough different parking terms to constitute a distinct list. Note that although the word le stationnement is clearly more French than le parking, most French people tend to prefer the English loanword.
| parking | parking (m), stationnement (m) |
| parking garage | un garage |
| underground parking | un parking souterrain |
| public parking | parking public (m) |
| street parking | parking sur la rue (m) |
| free parking | parking gratuit (m) |
| paid parking | parking payant (m) |
| electric car charging station | une borne de récharge pour véhicule eléctrique |
| supercharger | un superchargeur |
| e-bike charger | un chargeur pour un vélo eléctrique |
Landmarks for finding your hotel in French
France has an extensive train network criss-crossing the country, and all its cities are pedestrian-friendly and have local public transit networks. Most French hotels are therefore accustomed to explaining to their guests how to get there from the nearest train or bus station. Indeed, many historic hotels are in pedestrian zones where walking is the only option. Even if your phone shows you where to go, it’s still a good idea to get some instructions from your hotel!
Here we provide an assortment of city landmarks that your hosts are likely to refer to when describing how to reach their hotel. It’s obviously not exhaustive, but the main ones are here to get you started.
| airport | l’aéroport (m) |
| train station | la gare |
| intercity bus station | la gare d’autocars |
| metro station | une station de métro |
| tram stop | l’arrêt de tram (m) |
| bus stop | l’arrêt de bus (m) |
| pedestrian zone | une zone piétonne |
| staircase | un escalier |
| hill | une coline |
| park | un parc |
| one-way | le sens unique |
| traffic light | la feu de circulation |
| stop sign | le stop |
Vocab for the French hotel breakfast buffet
This last list of French hotel vocab is specifically for the breakfast buffet. This is actually a great place to practice your French, since many of the items on offer even have little labels saying what they are! There can certainly be a much wider variety of foods at French breakfast buffets than what we’re listing here, but we cover the main ones.
For a full lesson on eating out in general, check out our post on how to order food in French.
| breakfast | le petit déjeuner |
| buffet | un buffet |
| take as much as you want | à volonté |
| to go | pour emporter |
| coffee machine | la machine à café |
| coffee | du café |
| tea | du thé |
| herbal tea | de la tisane |
| hot chocolate | du chocolat chaud |
| milk | du lait |
| cream | du crème |
| plant-based milk | du lait végétal |
| juice | du jus |
| orange juice | du jus d’orange |
| water | de l’eau (f) |
| cold cuts | de la charcuterie |
| cheese | du fromage |
| butter | du beurre |
| bread | du pain |
| jam | de la confiture |
| pastries | des viennoiseries (f) |
| egg | un œuf |
| fruit | du fruit |
| granola | du muesli |
| yogurt | du yaourt |
| plate | une assiette |
| bowl | un bol |
| mug | une tasse |
| glass | un verre |
| carafe | un carafe, un pichet |
| napkin | une serviette |
| cutlery | des couverts (m) |
| fork | une fourchette |
| spoon | une cuillière |
| knife | un couteau |
How to talk about problems at a French hotel
We’ve covered all the different parts of a hotel, but what if there’s something wrong? This last list includes some of the common complaints that you may want to bring to your host’s attention. Hopefully this will elicit some expressions of apology as they try to rectify the situation!
| bedbugs | des punaises de lit (f) |
| mouse, mice | une/des souris |
| spider | un araignée |
| cockroach | un cafard |
| ant, ants | une/des fourmis |
| smoke | la fumée |
| noise | du bruit |
| filth | la salété |
| hairs | des poils (m) |
| to function, to work | fonctionner |
| broken | cassé(e) |
| missing | manquant(e) |
| smelly | puant(e) |
| sticky | collant(e) |
| hot | chaud(e) |
| cold | froid(e) |
Vocab for hostels in French
We’ve done a full tour of French hotel terminology so far, a lot of which can obviously be applied in the context of other types of lodging as well. Hostels definitely have their own particularities though, so we’ll end our section on hotel French with useful vocab specific to hostels.
We can also recommend our full post on how to ace French happy hour, as well as our explanation of the most awkward French pickup line that you already know!
| dormitory | un dortoir |
| mixed-gender dorm | un dortoir mixte |
| female-only dorm | un dortoir féminin |
| bunk bed | un lit superposé |
| top bunk | un lit du haut |
| bottom bunk | un lit du bas |
| to snore | ronfler |
| locker | un casier |
| a cubby | un pigeonnier |
| shelf | un étagère |
| in the room, en suite | dans la chambre, en suite |
| in the corridor | dans le corridor |
| shared | partagé(e) |
| common | commun(e) |
| meeting time, meeting point | rendez-vous |
| guide | le/la guide |
| a tour of the city | un tour de la ville |
| happy hour | le happy hour |
| pub crawl | une tournée des bars |
| karaoke | karaoke (m) |
| guess-that-song competition | un blind test |
| beer pong | le beer pong |
Conclusion: Hotel French
Wow, that was a lot of information to get you ready for the French hotel scene. Do you feel like you know what you’re getting yourself into now?
We started with a pretty detailed discussion of the different types of lodging that can be found around France, from hotels to campings to mountain refuges. We gave you a good impression of what to expect from each type, and what to watch out for.
Then we brought our focus to hotels in France, looking specifically at the important points where they generally differ from their North American counterparts. Again, the goal here is to avoid any unpleasant surprises when you get to your French hotel, and to help you plan accordingly.
Then came the series of French vocab lists for all things hotel-related. In 15 theme-based lists, we introduced around 300 useful vocab words for talking about hotels in French. As always, we provided numerous links to our other LingoCulture lessons to build on many of the themes.
Of course we can also recommend our post on basic survival French to get you started. Just remember that making the effort to speak is the key to improving in the language, so building some basic French phrases for travel from the vocab we’ve laid out here will go a long way!
In the process, we hope you enjoy your stay at all the French hotels you visit! Bon voyage et bon séjour !