10 mots indispensables pour voyager en France

How do you ask for the bill in French?

L’addition, s’il vous plaît is how you ask for the bill in a French café or restaurant. The word is the arithmetic one children learn at school: what you owe is literally the sum of what you ordered. It belongs to the table specifically — a hotel bill is la note, and anything invoiced (a repair, an order, the electricity) is une facture, the word that comes with paperwork attached.

The lines are not airtight: la note also turns up loosely in cafés, so hearing it is not a mistake. Facture is the one to avoid at a table — asking a waiter for it sounds like you want a formal receipt for accounting, which is sometimes exactly what people do want.