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The car seat is not approved.

English: The car seat is not approved.

French: Le siège d’auto n’est pas approuvé.


When passengers bring on a car seat, you’ll need to check to see if it’s approved for your plane, and your airline will teach you how. Once in a while, a passenger will bring on a car seat that is not approved for use on your aircraft and you’ll have to tell them. Depending on procedures, the car seat will probably need to be tagged and sent to the cargo for the flight while the passenger holds the baby for take off and landing.


Here’s how we can tell the passenger that the car seat is not approved.

Le siège d’auto=The carseat

Est=Is

Approuvé=Approved

Le siège d’auto est apprové.=The car seat is approved.


To negate a sentence in French, we put “ne” and “pas” around the verb, in this case “est” “is”. But because the verb here “est” starts with a vowel, it contracts with the “ne” preceding it and we get:

Le siège d’auto n’est pas apprové.


In casual speech, the “ne” is often dropped in negations, leaving the sentence with the “pas” only.

Le siège d’auto est pas approuvé.

 

Now available! Module 4 of Canadian French for Flight Attendants. Learn the French for:

-Less common food/drinks/special meals.

-Bag issues (bag won't fit/no more space).

-Announcements for mechanical problems, cancellations, airplane changes, diverting, etc.

-Delays because of fuel, catering, connection passengers, weather, etc.

-Tight/missed connections.

-And much, much more!


 

Flight Attendant Souvenirs. Souvenirs d’un agent de bord. United Arab Emirates, February 2020. Émirats Arabes Unis, février 2020. The bus tour also took us by the Global Village, a centre for tourism, leisure and shopping. The large park is divided and themed after 90 different countries from around the world where you can buy goods and eat foods from each specific place. Just past its entrance are replicas of the Statue of Liberty, Big Ben, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, etc.



Car seat

English: Car seat

French: Siège d’auto


Also covered in Module 5 of Canadian French for Flight Attendants are French expressions used with our extra young passengers. Many passengers travel with infants and young children and they sometimes need special attention. Some passengers bring their child’s car seat to use on the plane as the child might still be a bit too small for a regular passenger seat. You might have noticed that car seats often have stickers on them showing that they’re approved for use in motor vehicles. If they want to use them on your flight, it needs to be approved to be used on your aircraft as well. Your airline will teach you during flight attendant training how to identify if a car seat is approved for your plane or not and every time a passenger brings on a car seat, you’ll need to double check that it’s approved.


Siège (m)=Seat

Auto (f)=Car, Automobile

Siège d’auto=Car seat


As you can see, ‘’siège d’auto” is literally “seat of automobile”.

 

Now available! Module 4 of Canadian French for Flight Attendants. Learn the French for:

-Less common food/drinks/special meals.

-Bag issues (bag won't fit/no more space).

-Announcements for mechanical problems, cancellations, airplane changes, diverting, etc.

-Delays because of fuel, catering, connection passengers, weather, etc.

-Tight/missed connections.

-And much, much more!


 

Flight Attendant Souvenirs. Souvenirs d’un agent de bord. United Arab Emirates, February 2020. Émirats Arabes Unis, février 2020. The bus tour also took us on the Palm Jumeirah, a large man-made archipelago just off of downtown Dubai, in the Persian Gulf. From the ground, it’s not possible to see the shape of the archipelago, but from the air (photo credit Richard Schneider, from 2013), you can see the sheer grandeur of the island, shaped like a palm tree surrounded by an outer shell. The outer shell of the palm houses many luxury hotels, including the clay-coloured Atlantis Hotel at the top of the palm, which is adjacent to the Lost Chambers Aquarium. The Royal Bridge Suite at the Atlantis Hotel goes for about $25 000 USD a night. The monorail that runs along the trunk of the Palm links the Atlantis with downtown Dubai. Each branch of the Palm is lined with private luxury homes. We were able to take a ferry ride around the branches of the Palm.



Air sickness bag

English: Air sickness bag

French: Sac malaise


In the theme of passengers not feeling well on board, we can also talk about air sickness bags, or colloquially known as barf bags or vomit bags. Some passengers get air sick easily, especially during turbulence, or they may be feeling nauseous because of other reasons. Things might get messy, and it's an incident that all flight attendants come across once in a while. Besides the flight attendant stock of air sickness bags, usually air sickness bags have already been placed in each passenger’s seat pocket, but if there isn’t one there, a passenger may ask you for one.


Sac (m)=Bag, sack

Malaise (m)=Malaise, dizzy spell, feeling of faintness

Sac malaise=Air sickness bag


You’ll see that in English, we’ve also borrowed the word “malaise” from French, though it’s a bit of a dated word in English nowadays.

 

Now available! Module 4 of Canadian French for Flight Attendants. Learn the French for:

-Less common food/drinks/special meals.

-Bag issues (bag won't fit/no more space).

-Announcements for mechanical problems, cancellations, airplane changes, diverting, etc.

-Delays because of fuel, catering, connection passengers, weather, etc.

-Tight/missed connections.

-And much, much more!


 

Flight Attendant Souvenirs. Souvenirs d’un agent de bord. United Arab Emirates, February 2020. Émirats Arabes Unis, février 2020. One main stop on the bus tour was the Marina Beach. The beach features the Dubai Eye, a large Ferris wheel modeled after the London Eye, but bigger. The Dubai Eye was still under construction, but I did go up the Flying Cup ride to get a nice view of the beach from atop.


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