A smooth flight

English: A smooth flight

French: Un vol en douceur

Your pilots may announce to your passengers that they're expecting “a smooth flight” meaning a flight with little to no turbulence. They may also say things along the lines of "we expect good flying conditions." You’ll hear your francophone colleagues translate this as “un vol calme”, literally “a calm flight”. You can also use this expression: un vol en douceur.

Vol (m)=Flight

Calme=Calm

En douceur=Smooth (literally, in gentleness)

Un vol en douceur=A smooth flight

Nous prévoyons un vol en douceur.

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Want to learn to speak the French you need to work as a flight attendant? Learn even more with Canadian French for Flight Attendants.

Special pre-launch price for Module 1 (French basics) and Module 2 (French for flight attendant French tests).

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Flight attendant souvenirs. Souvenirs d'un agent de bord. I thought I would share some photo souvenirs of my past travels as well. This was from a trip I took to Taipei (Taiwan) in 2014. A Taiwanese friend was visiting his folks there. At the same time, a friend from France was also living in Taipei, teaching French. Another flight attendant work friend also stopped in Taipei on her way home from a wedding. These two pictures were taken in Taipei's Liberty Square.

We expect to take off soon.

English: We expect to take off soon.

French: Nous prévoyons décoller bientôt.

Sometimes, your pilots will make an announcement after push back from the gate, but before you take off from the runway. If there’s a particularly long line-up of airplanes in front of the runway for take-off, for example, your pilots may make this announcement to inform everyone of the expected wait time for take-off.

While we used “partir” as a generic word for “to depart”, in this case, you can use the verb “décoller” to specify “to take off” (from the runway).

Décoller=To take off

Nous prévoyons=We expect

Bientôt=Soon

Nous prévoyons décoller bientôt.

Nous prévoyons décoller dans environ 10 minutes.

The verb “to take off” is “décoller”. You may remember from earlier posts that the noun “take-off” in French is “décollage” (m).

Pouvez-vous ranger votre sac pour le décollage? Can you stow your bag for (the) take-off?

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Want to learn to speak the French you need to work as a flight attendant? Learn even more with Canadian French for Flight Attendants.

Special pre-launch price for Module 1 (French basics) and Module 2 (French for flight attendant French tests).

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Taking off from the Barcelona Airport. Le décollage de l'aéroport de Barcelone. Speaking of taking off, here's picture of our take-off from the Barcelona Airport (BCN) a few weeks ago.

We expect to depart from the gate soon.

English: We expect to depart from the gate soon.

French: Nous prévoyons partir de la porte bientôt.

Pilots often like to make a greeting announcement during boarding, or towards the end of boarding, before the plane has left the gate. They might say that we’re expecting to close the main cabin door and push back from the gate in the next 5 to 10 minutes. Remembering that our goal is to translate the main idea of the announcement in a simple way, for now we can just translate the message as “we expect to depart from the gate in about 5 to 10 minutes.”

Nous prévoyons=We expect

Partir=To depart

De la porte=From the gate

Dans environ cinq à dix minutes=In about five to ten minutes

Bientôt=Soon

Nous prévoyons partir (de la porte) dans environ cinq à dix minutes.

If you’re making the announcement while the plane is still at the gate, then “de la porte” becomes rather unnecessary. While the plane is still at the gate, if you say “nous prévoyons partir dans 5 minutes”, it’s clear you mean “partir de la porte”.

When appropriate, instead of specifying how many minutes, you can just say “soon” “bientôt”.

Nous prévoyons partir bientôt.

As a side note, in English, we say that the plane “pushes back” from the gate as a technical term for when the plane departs from the gate, usually pushed back by a tow truck. French has a technical verb for this as well “refouler” and a corresponding noun “pushback” “refoulement” (m). We recommend just using “partir (de la porte)” for the sake of simplicity. “Refouler” is a very technical term that you’ll likely never use in other contexts, whereas “partir” is a very common verb in French and you can use it in many other contexts as well. Furthermore, “refouler” is not a word that your francophone passengers will likely use.

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Want to learn to speak the French you need to work as a flight attendant? Learn even more with Canadian French for Flight Attendants.

Special pre-launch price for Module 1 (French basics) and Module 2 (French for flight attendant French tests).

www.facebook.com/frenchforflightattendants

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Dinner in Barcelona. Le souper à Barcelone. Enjoying vegan fare in Barcelona. This was at a restaurant called Teresa Carles close to Plaça de Catalunya. Tacos. Lasagna. Chocolate cake. Millefeuille.