Essential French phrases

Hello, in Lingala. French is the sole official language and the language of every document you will ever sign; Lingala is what Brazzaville actually speaks — and it is the same Lingala they speak in Kinshasa, which is the single most useful thing to know about these two cities.

'What's the news?', the standard second move after mbote. 'Sango te' — no news — means all is well. Skipping straight to your request without this exchange reads as rude in a way that costs you real time at a counter.

Thank you, and thank you very much. The second is half French and half Lingala, which is not sloppiness — code-switching mid-sentence is simply how the city talks, and doing it yourself is the fastest way to stop sounding like a visitor.

The other national language, and the reason Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire do not sound alike. Lingala runs along the river and through the north; Kituba is the lingua franca of the Kouilou, Niari and Bouenza in the south. A Brazzaville posting teaches you Lingala; a Pointe-Noire one teaches you Kituba.

A white person, and by extension any obvious foreigner. Children shout it cheerfully, adults use it flatly. It is rarely an insult and always a pricing signal: you have been quoted a different number three seconds before you open your mouth.

The Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes: dressing, in public, as a discipline. Bacongo is its heartland, and it is the loud end of a general expectation that you turn up looking like you tried. Shorts at an administrative appointment is a category error here.

'The other bank' — Kinshasa. Nobody here says 'the DRC' in conversation; they say the other bank, or simply Kin. Getting there means the beach, the bac, an international border, a different currency and a visa, all inside four kilometres of water.

The river port at the foot of the corniche where the ferry to Kinshasa loads. It is a working international frontier post, not a promenade — and the UK government's own advice is that the crossing can close without warning, does not run on Sundays, and stops in bad weather.

The question every green-and-white taxi driver asks. 'Un taxi' means you share and pay the short-hop fare; 'une course' means the cab is yours alone and costs several times more. Answer before you get in, and agree the number — there are no meters.

Money, and 'let's go'. With them, the small useful set: yaka (come), tokende (we're leaving), motuka (car), malamu (good, fine, agreed) and 'ekoki' — enough, that is the price, we are finished haggling.

A neighbourhood open-air bar-restaurant: plastic chairs, grilled fish, crates of beer, rumba at volume. The nganda is the social institution of both Congos, and far more of Brazzaville's real life happens in one than in any restaurant.

Pounded cassava leaves stewed with palm oil and smoked fish — the national dish, eaten with chikwangue or foufou. Note the word: Kinshasa says pondu, Brazzaville says saka-saka, and the two cities enjoy correcting each other about it.

Fish or meat wrapped in a banana or marantacea leaf with chilli and spice and steamed in the parcel. Ask for maboké at a riverside nganda on a Sunday and you have ordered correctly without further explanation.

Chicken in palm-nut sauce, the other dish that defines a Congolese table. If you are being taken somewhere to be shown that the city eats well, this is usually what arrives.