If you’re a chocolate lover then you’re in for a real treat! In today’s lesson we’ll look at how to say and pronounce chocolate in French: le chocolat. We’ll also learn some useful vocabulary words realted to chocolate. Keep reading!
le chocolat
chocolate
How to say chocolate in French: – le chocolat
Listen to podcast of this lesson
Word origin
According to Etymonline.com, the English word chocolate and the French word chocolat come from the Nahuatl (native Mexican langauge) word chocolatl.
Pronunciation and gender
Chocolate in French is a masculin noun: le chocolat. The pronunciation is sho-ko-lah or [ʃɔkɔla]. In accordance with the French reading rules, the ch sounds like the English -sh and the final -t is silent.
Example sentences
For this first example, we could have also said “Est-ce que vous préférez” (do you prefer). This lesson our site covers est-ce que, which means do, does, is and are for yes-no questions.
Préférez-vous le chocolat au lait, le chocolat noir ou le chocolat blanc?
Do you prefer milk chocolate, dark chocolate or white chocolate?
Notice in this next sentence that the adjectives for nationalties are written in the undercase. This is not a mistake. Adjectives for countries are not capitalized. For example, je suis français (I am French).
Le chocolat suisse est très bon mais je préfère le chocolat belge.
Swiss chocolate is very good but I prefer Belgian chocolate.
These next to example sentences uses the verb faire which means to make and to do. This post on our site provides a comprehensive list of expressions with faire.
Marie fait un gâteau au chocolat pour les enfants.
Marie is making a chocolate cake for the children.
Corinne et Véronique font de la mousse au chocolat pour toute la famille.
Corinne and Véronique are making chocolate mousse for the entire family.
This final example sentence uses the verb boire, which we cover in depth in this post.
J’adore boire le chocolat chaud en hiver.
I love drinking hot chocolate during the winter.
More chocolate vocabulary
Here are a few more words which I thought would be helpful for this lesson!
- la barre de chocolat chocolate bar
- le carré de chocolat piece of chocolate
- la tablette de chocolat chocolate bar (also means six-pack abs!)
- la glace au chocolat chocolate ice cream
- le chocolat amer unsweetened chocolate
- le pain au chocolat chocolate croissant
- le chocolatier, la chocolatière chocolate maker
Conclusion
Et voilà ! Now you know how to say chocolate in French! Now check our our related lesson covering the pronunciation of croissant!
