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An invitation that is not a question
Karim's first line is the lesson, and it is worth being explicit about what is happening in it, because the instinctive reading is wrong. To a visitor from a culture of explicit individual consent, 'tu viens au hammam vendredi, ce n'est pas une question' sounds like pressure. It is better understood as inclusion. The grammar of invitation in much of the Maghreb — and in Senegal, as lesson 82 described — assumes that a guest wants to be included and that leaving the choice open would be a way of leaving them out. The force of the statement is affection, not coercion, and the correct response is Alex's: accept, cheerfully, without making a negotiation of it. **The hammam itself**, practically, since the lesson is set there. It is a weekly institution rather than a treat: separate hours or separate buildings for men and women, a progression through warm to hot rooms, black soap, a vigorous scrub with a 'gant' — often administered by somebody else, which surprises people — and a long cooling-down with conversation. You bring or hire a towel, a mat, soap and the glove. You keep underwear on. It is a social occasion in the way a pub or a sauna is social, and being taken to one is a sign you have been absorbed into somebody's week rather than entertained as a visitor. **On the formulae**, Alex's closing line is the useful observation. 'Inchallah', 'hamdoullah' and the rest are not politeness in the sense of optional ornament; they are closer to grammatical particles that mark the status of what you are saying — contingent, grateful, beginning, admiring. A learner who omits them is not being rude but is speaking a flatter French than the people around them. A learner who deploys them heavily and self-consciously is doing the thing lesson 85 warned about. The middle course is the same as it has been all year: use the two or three that fit your situation naturally, understand the rest, and let the others arrive on their own. One caution. These expressions are Arabic and carry religious reference, and using them is unremarkable for anyone living in the Maghreb, including non-Muslims and non-believers. What does not work is adopting them as an affectation at a distance — 'inchallah' deployed humorously in Paris about a bus timetable is a different act from 'inchallah' said in Casablanca about tomorrow's coffee. If that distinction feels thin, the safe rule is to use them where you heard them.