A friend who charters in the Morbihan every summer once told me he had never spoken a word of French on the radio and never had a problem. He is mostly right, and slightly wrong, and the gap between the two is the reason I am writing this. You can cruise France calling marinas in English and get away with it nearly every time. But "nearly" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and a handful of French phrases will get you a better berth, a faster lock, and on a bad day a clearer answer from a coastguard operator who is fielding a dozen calls at once.
Let me set out when language actually matters on the radio, and the phrases worth having on a laminated card.
The reassuring news first
Maritime VHF is built on an international system, and the distress, urgency and safety procedures are standardised worldwide. If you hold an RYA Short Range Certificate or any equivalent, the Mayday, Pan-Pan and Securite formats you learned are exactly the ones used in France. CROSS, the French coastguard, handles distress traffic constantly and its operators work to international procedure. In a genuine emergency you may speak English. Do not freeze up hunting for French words when life is at risk; a clear English Mayday will be understood and acted on. The full structure of those calls is in the article on the French distress and safety call procedure.
So the headline is: you are never stuck for the calls that matter most. English works where it counts. French is about smoothing the routine traffic, and occasionally about being understood faster when the operator's English is weaker than your French.
Calling a marina: the everyday exchange
This is the call you will make most, and a little French goes a long way because the harbour office staff are not all fluent in English, especially in smaller ports off the tourist track. The marina works on its own channel, usually 9, and the channel logic for the whole coast is in VHF channels in France.
A serviceable opening is straightforward. To hail the harbour office you say its name plus "Capitainerie", for example "Capitainerie de Concarneau, Capitainerie de Concarneau, ici voilier Kittiwake" ("here is sailing yacht Kittiwake"). Note "voilier" is a sailing yacht and "bateau a moteur" a motorboat. Then the useful phrases:
- "Je suis un visiteur, avez-vous une place pour cette nuit?" meaning "I am a visitor, do you have a berth for tonight?"
- "Quelle est la profondeur a l'entree?" for "what is the depth at the entrance?"
- "Pouvez-vous parler lentement, s'il vous plait?" for "can you speak slowly, please?" which is the single most useful phrase in this article.
- "Je ne parle pas bien francais, parlez-vous anglais?" for "I do not speak French well, do you speak English?" Asked politely in French, this almost always produces either English or a patient, slow French reply.
Numbers are where it falls apart, because berth numbers and pontoon letters come back fast. If you do nothing else, learn zero to ten and ask them to repeat slowly. The whole arrival routine, beyond the radio, is covered in how French marinas work for visitors.
Locks and port traffic: keep it short and do as you are told
Calling a lock or a commercial port, usually on channel 12, is not a conversation, it is a request and an instruction. Keep it minimal:
- "Demande d'entree" or "demande d'eclusage": request to enter, or request to lock through.
- They will reply with an instruction. "Attendez" means wait, "entrez" means come in, "vous pouvez entrer" means you may enter. "Patientez" also means hold on.
- "Bien recu" is "received, understood", the equivalent of "Roger". It is worth learning because you will use it on every call.
If you do not understand the instruction, do not guess at a lock. Say "repetez s'il vous plait" (repeat please) or simply hold off and call again. Guessing your way into a lock with a ship inside is how visiting boats get into trouble, and the lock mechanics are worth understanding in advance from how a French lock works.
The coastguard: English in earnest, French at the edges
For any distress, urgency or safety call, use plain clear English. CROSS will understand you. Where a little French helps is the routine, non-emergency exchange: reporting a hazard you have spotted, asking for a radio check, confirming you have received a broadcast.
A radio check is the friendly first thing to try when you reach a new area. "Demande de controle radio" requests a radio check; the reply tells you how you are coming across. The coastguard's weather and safety broadcasts are in French, announced on 16 then sent to a working channel such as 79 or 80, and to follow those you really do want the French weather vocabulary, which is set out in understanding the French coastal forecast. Knowing which station is listening helps too, and that is mapped out in CROSS and the French coastguard, who to call and on what channel.
The thirty words that earn their keep
You do not need to be conversational. You need a short, reliable list. Beyond the marina and lock phrases above, these are the words I would not be without:
- Greetings and courtesy: "bonjour" (hello, by day), "bonsoir" (good evening), "merci" (thank you), "s'il vous plait" (please).
- "Oui" yes, "non" no, "d'accord" agreed.
- "A vous" is "over", handing the transmission back. "Termine" is "out", ending the exchange.
- "Lentement" slowly, "encore" again, "je repete" I say again.
- Directions and position: "babord" port, "tribord" starboard, "devant" ahead, "derriere" astern.
- The numbers zero to ten, which carry berths, channels, depths and times.
Write those on a card, slip it in a clear sleeve by the radio, and you have covered the routine traffic of a whole French cruise. For a deeper everyday French vocabulary beyond the radio, the article on 60 boating French phrases goes further into provisioning, the boatyard and the harbour bar.
Pronunciation, because the words only help if they land
Saying the right word badly is nearly as useless as saying nothing, so a few pronunciation notes earn their place. "Capitainerie" is roughly "ka-pee-ten-ree". "Voilier" is "vwa-lee-ay". "Bonjour" softens to "bon-zhoor", with the zh of the word "pleasure". The numbers are the ones to drill, because they carry berths and channels: "un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq" comes out close to "uh, duh, twah, katr, sank", and "six, sept, huit, neuf, dix" as "sees, set, weet, nerf, dees". Get those ten reliably and you can read back a berth number or a channel and have it understood.
The phonetic alphabet on the radio is the international NATO one, the same Alpha, Bravo, Charlie you learned at home, and French operators use it too, so you do not need a French version of that. Spell your boat name in the standard phonetic alphabet and it will be copied correctly whatever the operator's first language.
Things not to say, and habits to drop
A couple of British radio habits travel badly. Do not say "Roger" expecting it to mean anything special; "bien recu" is the local equivalent and is instantly understood. Do not pile courtesy onto a working channel, the French keep routine traffic crisp, so skip the elaborate thanks and sign-offs until the business is done. And do not use channel 16 for anything beyond distress, urgency, safety and the first hail, because the coastguard is listening and a chatty 16 is frowned on everywhere, France included.
One more: resist the urge to translate word for word in your head mid-transmission. Have your phrases ready on the card, say the whole phrase as a block, and listen for the key reply word rather than trying to parse a full sentence. "Entrez", "attendez", "place", "non" carry the meaning. You are listening for the verb and the number, not for grammar.
The right attitude on the radio
Here is what years of doing this badly and then less badly taught me. Open in French, even just "bonjour" and the boat name, and you signal respect and effort. The moment you are out of your depth, ask in French whether they speak English, and most will switch happily. Reserve your English for the calls where clarity beats courtesy, which means anything with the word Mayday or Pan-Pan in it. Speak slowly, keep transmissions short, and never let a fear of the language stop you keying the mic when you genuinely need help. The French coastguard would far rather take a halting English call than have a boat in trouble stay silent out of embarrassment. Effort on the routine calls, clarity on the urgent ones, and you will sound like you belong on the French coast inside a week.
