Napkin

English: Napkin.

French: Serviette.

Bonjour de Jérusalem. Greetings from Jerusalem. 1st picture: The Western Wall within the old city. 2nd picture: Temple Mount and the old city of Jerusalem, taken from the Tomb Of The Prophets in East Jerusalem.

If you’re offering drink service, you’ll probably automatically hand out a napkin as you ask each passenger “quelque chose à boire?”. The meal trays you hand out also usually come with napkins and utensils. But it’s also common for passengers to ask you for an extra napkin or two.

Serviette (f)=Napkin

A “napkin” usually refers to just a paper napkin. In English, we say “serviette” as well, but it tends to refer to a fancier napkin, perhaps made of cloth instead of paper.

“Serviette” in French is the word for “napkin”. But francophones will also use the anglicism “napkin” in French.

‘’Serviette’’ in French also means “towel”.

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The Western Wall

Temple Mount and the old city of Jerusalem

Utensils. Fork. Knife. Spoon.

English: Utensils. Fork. Knife. Spoon.

French: Ustensiles. Fourchette. Couteau. Cuillière.

Bonjour from Tel Aviv! Sharing a picture of the Tel Aviv skyline and beach I took from the old port city of Jaffa. (And yes. The water's waaaaay too cold for swimming now.)

With meal service, you generally need utensils. Utensil sets usually come with the meal tray, but a passenger may ask you for another. Perhaps, they’ve accidentally dropped their fork onto the floor, for example. Also, once in a while, you’ll have a passenger who brought their own food on board but forgot to get utensils, so they may ask you if you have an extra set.

A formal word for “utensils” is “couverts” (m, pl) but to our recollection, no passenger has ever used “couverts” with us. Your passengers instead will use “ustensiles”, which technically refers more to kitchen utensils, rather than eating utensils. However, your passengers will use “ustensiles” to refer to eating utensils (forks, knives and spoons), so this is what we'll use as well.

Ustensiles (m, pl)=Utensils

Fourchette (f)=Fork

Couteau (m)=Knife

Cuillière (f)=Spoon

Un autre couteau=Another knife

Une autre cuillière=Another spoon

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Bonjour from Tel Aviv!

To order. To request.

English: To order. To request.

French: Commander. Demander.

During meal service, a passenger may inform you that they’ve ordered/requested a special meal, such as a vegetarian meal. Or, before the flight, you may have been given a list of special meal requests. You may see on your list that the passenger at seat 25A ordered a vegetarian meal, for example, so you ask them to confirm that they did indeed do so.

Commander=To order

Demander=To request, to ask

Notice in French, “commander” does not mean “to command” in this context, and “demander” does not mean “to demand”, even though the words look similar.

J’ai commandé=I ordered

J’ai demandé=I requested, I asked

Vous avez commandé=You ordered

Vous avez demandé=You requested, you asked

Avez-vous commandé?=Did you order?

Avez-vous demandé?=Did you request? Did you ask?

So a passenger may inform you during meal service that “I ordered a vegan meal” “J’ai commandé un repas végétalien.” “I requested the vegan meal” “J’ai demandé le repas végan.”

Or you could confirm with the passenger “Excuse me, Mister Villeneuve, did you order the gluten-free meal?” “Excusez-moi, Monsieur Villeneuve, avez-vous commandé le repas sans gluten?’’ ‘’Madam Tremblay, did you request the vegetarian meal?” “Madame Tremblay, avez-vous demandé le repas végétarien?’’

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