A scoop of ice cream ... au glacier ...

Question

1) Surely glacier should be an acceptable translation for ice cream parlour?
2) I'm struggling with the use of à rather than de for the ice cream scoops.  A scoop of vanilla ice cream would be une boule de glace à la vanille, but in removing the word glace, I'd think you'd be left with une boule de vanille.  
Merci.

Accepted Answer

Bonjour J and Maarten,
Thank you for your comments! You're right that "glacier" as well as "glacerie" are correct options. They have now been added to the exercise.
You can say "une boule à la vanille" as the full expressions would be "une boule (de glace) à la vanille" (i.e an ice cream scoop of vanilla).

Une boule de glace -> une boule de glace à la vanille -> une boule (de glace) à la vanille

I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

Answer

JS

‘ le glacier ‘ is the noun for the person who makes/sells ice cream; the shop or parlour is ‘ la glacerie ‘ . Same difference as between ‘ le boulanger ‘ and ‘ la boulangerie ‘, for example.

Grammatically it is correct to say ‘ aller á la glacerie ‘ ( more commonly used in my experience) or ‘ aller chez le glacier ‘, but the prepositions are not interchangeable.

( Of course, ‘ dans ‘ is also used sometimes with places, but that depends on context, and is not correct in a general statement like this example. It is also not directly interchangeable with ‘ chez ‘ or ‘ à ‘.

I have never heard ‘ une boule de vanille ‘, usually just ' une boule vanille '. Can’t say it’s not ever used, but not amongst the French people (mostly aged 50 plus) that I hear speaking.

https://www.wordreference.com/enfr/ice-cream%20parlour

https://www.wordreference.com/fren/glacier

https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/glacier/37048

https://dictionnaire.lerobert.com/definition/glacier

https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/glacerie/37036

https://dictionnaire.lerobert.com/definition/glacerie

PS - Having checked on line, there does appear to be regular usage of ' (une) boule de vanille ' and ' (une) boule vanille '. ( Note to self, not for the first time, do the internet search first ! )

One of many links below.

https://www.patinedor.com/produit/boule-de-vanille/

Answer

Merci, Maarten.  Glacier, glacerie ... makes perfect sense.  As far as the ice cream is concerned, I asked a French friend (who coincidentally is 57) and he came back with boule de vanille.  Anyway, either with or without "de", it seems to me that the text of the exercise should be changed.  Googling "boule à la vanille" gives me lots of hits that are boule de quelque chose à la vanille, but almost nothing that is simply boule à la vanille (although I'll admit to not spending a ton of time pouring through my search results).