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Kitchen words in French

Last updated July 7, 2026 · 7 min read

40 kitchen words in French

Every object here is something you'd actually reach for — no rare or textbook-only vocabulary. The pronunciation column is a simple respelling, not IPA, so you can sound it out on sight.

Phrases you can actually say

A word list is more useful once it's inside a sentence. Here are eight short phrases built entirely from the table above:

1. Je voudrais un verre d'eau. — I'd like a glass of water.
2. Où est la poubelle ? — Where's the trash can?
3. Passe-moi la cuillère, s'il te plaît. — Pass me the spoon, please.
4. Le café est prêt. — The coffee is ready.
5. J'ai besoin d'une tasse. — I need a cup.
6. Le frigo est vide. — The fridge is empty.
7. Il y a du sucre dans le placard. — There's sugar in the cupboard.
8. Je mange une pomme. — I'm eating an apple.

Catch them instead of memorizing them

A list like this one is a starting point, not a finish line. Vocabulary attached to an object you can actually touch sticks better than vocabulary studied off a page — that's the whole idea behind CatchFrase. Instead of memorizing la cuillère from a table, you open the camera, point it at the spoon in your own drawer, and get the word, its pronunciation, and an example sentence built around the actual object in front of you.

Every catch becomes a card in your collection: the word with its article, a phrase you can say out loud, and audio you can replay as many times as you want. Say it back, and CatchFrase transcribes your voice live, so you know whether le or la actually came out right — not a guess, an answer.

Here's the honest math: the free tier gives you 10 catches a day, so photographing a kitchen's worth of objects — the 40 words above — takes about four days of short sessions. Spaced review brings each word back before you'd forget it, so what you caught on day one is still there by day four.

Common questions

Do I need to memorize every gender before I start?

No — CatchFrase attaches the article every time it names an object, so you absorb le and la through repetition instead of a separate memorization pass. Read the list above as a preview, not a test.

Why does this list use le or la instead of just the word?

French gender isn't optional — get it wrong and a sentence sounds off even if the noun is right. Learning cuillère by itself teaches half the word; learning la cuillère teaches the whole thing.

Is 40 words enough to get started in the kitchen?

It covers the tools, dishes, and staples you touch every day, which is enough to build real sentences. CatchFrase's free tier lets you catch more objects a day beyond this list, all of it drawn from your own kitchen.