English: We expect to arrive at the gate at 10:30.
French: Nous prévoyons arriver à la porte à 10:30.
Sometimes, landing time will be announced and sometimes gate arrival time will be announced. Sometimes, both. To translate gate arrival time, you can use the following:
Arriver=To arrive
Nous prévoyons=We expect
Porte (f)=Gate, door
À la porte=At the gate
Nous prévoyons arriver à la porte à 10:30.
‘’Porte’’ in everyday French is simply “door” and can refer to almost any kind of door. In the context of an airport, a “gate” is the place where an airplane parks at the terminal and where passengers board or disembark from the airplane. Gates are marked by numbers. The screens inside the terminal will tell passengers (and crew) from which gate their flight is departing (or arriving) and the signage will tell them how to get to that gate. The official translation for “gate” in French is “porte” and will be recognized by all francophones. In Canada however, you will hear your French Canadian colleagues, passengers, and airport agents (especially those in Quebec) using the word “barrière” (f) for “gate”. “Barrière” in general contexts means “barrier”. Your passengers will also very often use the anglicism “gate” (f).
You yourself are invited to use “porte” at all times for the sake of simplicity. However, it’s important that you at least recognize these other terms that you’ll inevitably encounter (covered in Module 4 of our Canadian French for Flight Attendants audio course). I was personally thrown off the first time a passenger asked me in French about connecting gates but instead of using “la porte” or even "la barrière", she said “la gate”. All I heard was “la geite”, and didn’t think that “geite” was a real French word (it isn’t), then finally realizing that she was using the anglicism “gate”.
Close to Cauterets, France. Près de Cauterets, France. These pictures were taken at the Pont d'Espagne (French for "Bridge of Spain"). There are nice hiking trails in the area surround the stream. In the winter, people come for snowshoeing and skiing.
Want to learn to speak the French you need to work as a flight attendant? Learn even more with Canadian French for Flight Attendants.
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