Ordering with an Allergy in a Bordeaux Café
Role-play: a 90-second interaction in a café in Bordeaux. Your teacher plays the waiter and speaks at normal speed. The menu board reads: chocolat chaud 3,00 €; cookie aux noisettes 2,20 €; pain au chocolat 1,60 €. You have €5 and a serious nut allergy. You order a hot chocolate. The waiter replies: « Très bien. Avec un cookie aux noisettes ? Ils sont faits maison. » You do not know the word « noisettes ». Your teacher will not slow down or translate into English. You may use gestures and one repair question, then you must choose a snack and finish the transaction. You have practised « Je voudrais » but not allergy vocabulary. The waiter is friendly but busy, and there is a queue behind you. Marks are for communication and interaction, not error-free grammar.
1. What do you say when you do not understand « noisettes », and why is switching to English a poor choice here?
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Ask about the specific word, not the whole sentence: « Pardon, qu'est-ce que c'est, les noisettes ? » or the lower-risk yes/no check « Il y a des noisettes dedans ? ». Both keep the exchange in French and show you understood the frame of the question - you know a snack is being offered, you just need one item. Then state the constraint: « Je suis allergique aux fruits à coque » or « Je ne peux pas manger de noisettes ». Switching to English may get the order taken, but it ends the French interaction the task is assessing, and the waiter may not follow you. A vague « Je ne comprends pas » is also weaker than a targeted question because it gives the waiter nothing to repair. In an interactive task, asking a precise question is a communication skill being marked, not an admission of failure.
2. The waiter repeats the offer. Which snack do you choose, and how do you say it so the order is both safe and polite?
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Choose the pain au chocolat at 1,60 €. The cookie is excluded by the allergy regardless of price, so the only real decision is between the remaining item and asking for something not on the board. The budget then works: 3,00 € + 1,60 € = 4,60 €, inside the €5. Phrase it as « Je vais prendre le pain au chocolat, s'il vous plaît » rather than « Je veux », which sounds blunt to a server. Add one safety check on the drink if you can: « Le chocolat chaud, il contient des noisettes ? » The reasoning is a priority order: allergy first, budget second, politeness third. A candidate who chooses the cheaper cookie has ignored the non-negotiable constraint; one who chooses correctly but says « Je veux » loses interaction marks for no gain.
3. The waiter says quickly: « Donc un chocolat chaud et un pain au chocolat, c'est ça ? » How do you confirm and close the interaction?
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Use the confirmation chunk rather than repeating the whole order: « Oui, c'est ça. Merci beaucoup. » Repeating everything risks introducing a new error into an order that has just been understood correctly. Then close the transaction: « Je peux payer, s'il vous plaît ? » or « L'addition, s'il vous plaît. » If you want to check the total, « Ça fait combien ? » is short and reliable. The reasoning is that the waiter has done the summarising work for you; your job is to confirm clearly and move to the next stage of the interaction. Candidates who freeze at this point often lose marks they had already earned, because the order was correct but the exchange was never closed. A short, confident « Oui, c'est ça » plus a thank-you is worth more than a long, hesitant sentence.