Say something today: greetings and courtesies

You can hold your first French conversation before you have conjugated a single verb. Greetings and courtesies are fixed phrases: learn the ones below as whole things to say, the way you learned thank you as a child, and you can walk into a bakery or a café this afternoon and take part.

So today, these are just things to say.

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1. 1Bonjour ! Un café, s'il vous plaît.
2. 2Bonjour, madame.
3. 3un café

Walking into a French bakery: bonjour first, then what you want, with s'il vous plaît. The baker greets her back.

Greetings

Three words open and close almost every French exchange. Learn Bonjour first: walking into a French shop without it is genuinely rude.

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1. 1Bonjour
2. 2Bonjour
3. 3Bonsoir
4. 4Bonne nuit

Bonjour covers the whole day; bonsoir is the hello once it gets dark; bonne nuit is only for bedtime, never a greeting.

With a stranger, add madame or monsieur. A bare Bonjour is fine; the title makes it warmer.

• Bonjour, madame. - Hello. (to a woman)
• Bonsoir, monsieur. - Good evening. (to a man)
• Salut, Marie ! - Hi, Marie!

Au revoir is literally until the seeing-again. Salut doubles as a casual bye on the way out: Salut, à bientôt ! - Bye, see you soon!

Getting by

French has two words for you: tu for a friend, a child or a fellow student, and vous for a stranger, an official or anyone you would call madame or monsieur. Several phrases come in both forms, so this page colours them.

When in doubt, use the vous form: nobody was ever offended by too much politeness. The full story is on French subject pronouns.

The answers barely change. Only the and you? follows the tu or vous of the question:

• Ça va bien, merci. - I'm fine, thank you.
• Très bien, merci. Et vous ? - Very well, thanks. And you?
• Je m'appelle Marie. Et toi ? - My name's Marie. And you?

Put your own name after Je m'appelle and you have introduced yourself. Literally it is I call myself.

Courtesies

These keep every exchange friendly. The trap is the apology: Pardon is the quick social sorry, and Désolé is the real one.

Two examples of the difference:

• Pardon, madame. - Excuse me. (squeezing past her on the bus)
• Je suis désolé, je suis en retard. - I'm sorry, I'm late.

A woman writes désolée, with an extra e you cannot hear: Je suis désolée. - I'm sorry.

And the most useful sentence a beginner owns, because it keeps a conversation alive:

• Je ne comprends pas. - I don't understand.
• Pardon ? Je ne comprends pas. - Sorry? I don't understand.