[Originally posted on 04/15/14 on the Duolingo French for English speakers forum by PERCE_NEIGE]
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“Bonjour” can be said at any hour if you meet someone for the first time in the day, but if it’s late, it’s very weird to say “bonjour” as the “jour” (the day) is ending, you would say rather “bonsoir” (good evening). If you say “Bonjour” to someone and it’s already the start of the evening, people will reply “Bonsoir” and you’ll have to say: “oh, yes, sorry, “bonsoir” because it’s already the evening now.” (Oui, c’est vrai, bonsoir, c’est déjà le soir, maintenant…)
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You never use “Bonjour” when you take leave of someone.
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“Bonjour” can be also “good morning” in the morning.
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“Bonne nuit” is “good night”. It’s the greeting we say before going to bed, (or you can say it when you take leave of someone in the night)
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“Bonsoir” is “good evening”, so you say it in the evening. And you also can say it when you leave of someone in the evening. You can say it also when you meet someone in the evening instead of “bonjour”. (since “bonjour” is weird when it’s late)
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“Bon après-midi!” (sometimes spelled “bonne”) is “good afternoon”, you can say it when you take leave of someone in the after-noon.
For instance: I go to my grocery store, and I met the sales assitant, I say: Bonjour/Bonsoir I buy my groceries, and when I take leave of him, I say: Au revoir/ Bon après-midi/Bonsoir/Bonne nuit.
- “Salut”: (very informal, you can’t say it to your boss, but only to friends) = Hello/HI
How are you?
Note: It’s idiomatic, you can’t use the verb “to be” (être) in French to say that, you have to use the verb “to go” (aller), a irregular verb (Je vais, tu vas, nous allons, etc…)
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Formal form: Comment vas-tu? (comment allez-vous?)
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Less formal form: Comment tu vas? (comment vous allez?)
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Even less formal form: ça va bien? / ça va?
Answers:
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Formal form: Je vais bien. (Nous allons bien, for a group)
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Less formal form: ça va bien/ ça va.
Slang greetings
- Quoi de neuf? (litteraly: what is new?) = What’s up?
Here the famous “What’s up doc?” in French: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eljJZ9mvI9w (Quoi de neuf docteur?)
The joke is to reply “Que du vieux”. (Nothing’s new, all is old)
- Quoi de beau? (litteraly: what is beautiful?) = What’s up?
Salut
“Salut” is very informal, you can’t say it with your boss for example, you use it when it’s too formal to say “bonjour”.
For instance, you meet some close friends, you are a students, and you meet some other young students, etc…
“Salut” means:
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“Hello/Hi” when you meet someone. It’s the first word you say when meeting the person. It’s the last word you say in this case. For instance:
-Salut! Comment vas-tu? -
“Bye!” (“Salut” is less formal than “goodbye”), when you are taking leave of someone.
-Désolé, je dois partir maintenant… Salut! (Sorry, I have to leave now… Bye!)
Please note that:
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There’s only one word for “Salut”, unlike English with “Hello, hi, hey”, etc…
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Salut is not used for “cheers” or anything else, it’s only “hello” and “bye”.
Cheers
When somone is sneezing, you will say in French, one of the following:
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A tes souhaits (= Make a wish)
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A tes amours (= I wish you good love relationships)
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Dieu te bénisse (= God bless you)
When you drink with some friends you would say, while clinking your glass with the other person glass:
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Santé! / A ta santé! (=I wish you a good health)
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Tchin’ or even Tchin’-Tchin’ ( I don’t know how to write “tchin’ ” because it’s only an interjection, not a word)
(http://static.canalblog.com/storagev1/jboehler.canalblog.com/images/trinquer9fu.gif)
(http://nathou.n.a.pic.centerblog.net/nxs5rkao.gif)
(http://centerloup.c.e.pic.centerblog.net/b32f287e.gif)
Pardon/ Excusez-moi
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Remember, the English “Pardon” is a French word, so, you already know the meaning.
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“Pardon” is the noun from the verb “pardonner” (to forgive)
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When you mean to say “Sorry”, you say “Pardon!”, it’s used when you bump into someone for instance or if you have to make a passage through a crowd, etc…
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You can use also “Pardonnez-moi” (see the conjugations table for the verb “pardonner” to adapt to the person), but it’s much more formal, and can be used when you cut off when someone is talking, or if you made a wrong thing to ask for forgiveness.
Examples: -Pardonnez-moi, mais vous avez dit “100 €”? (Sorry, but you said “€100” ? (when cutting off someone)
-Pardon, je voudrais passer s’il vous plaît. (Excuse-me, I have to pass please)
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“Excusez-moi” (see the conjugation table for the verb “excuser”), it “excuse me”, the English “excuse” is also from the French. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=excuse
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You use “Excusez-moi” also to cut off someone who is speaking, but it’s less formal.
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You use “Excusez-moi” when you want to ask a favour, or ask a question the polite way.
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You use “Excusez-moi” (or the more formal “Pardonnez-moi”) when you want to call someone’s attention.
Examples: -Excusez-moi, vous avez dit “100€”?
-Excusez-moi, pouvez-vous fermer la fenêtre s’il vous plaît? (Excuse-me, can you close the window please.)
-Excusez-moi, avez-vous un train pour Paris? (Excuse me, do you have a train to Paris?)
- Je suis désolé(e)/ Je suis navré(e).
The English “desolate” and “desolation” are from the French).
“Je suis désolé” means “I’m sorry”/”I feel sorry”. It’s stronger than “pardon” or “excusez-moi”, it means you are really sorry.
- If you’re a male: Je suis désolé.
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If you’re a female: Je suis désolée. (because “désolé” is an adjective)
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Used when you feel sorry for something. If you bump someone really hard for instance, or if someone had a very bad experience and you feel sorry for the person.
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You can say “Je suis vraiment désolé” = I’m really sorry.
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“Très” désolé is not proper at all, the adverb has to be “really” not “très”. (really = vraiment, très = very)
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You can say also the short “désolé(e)!” = In this case, it’s not so strong, and you can say it instead of “pardon!”, it’s a bit stronger and it’s more formal than “pardon”.
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” Je suis navré (e)” / Navré (e) Same thing than for “désolé”, but “navré” is stronger and more formal.
You bumped someone really really hard: Navré! But it’s very formal, and can be weird in some situations.
“Je suis navré” is very formal, and is a strong regret.
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I beg you pardon, but… = Je vous demande pardon, mais…. To ask a favor.
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Je vous demande pardon?? = Is used to ask the person to repeat again what he/she was just saying. In you say it in an offended tone, it can be a mean to show your strong desaproval about an offending word the person just said.
Examples:
-Je vous demande pardon, mais pourriez-vous vous taire? (I beg you pardon but can you be quiet?)
– Je vous demande pardon !!! Vous avez dit “idiot”?? (I beg you pardon!!! Did you said “an idiot”?) -Pardon/Excusez-moi, pouvez-vous répéter? (Excuse me, can you repeat)
- Some people aso use “hein?” when they didn’t hear what you said, or when they want to show incredulity/disaproval, but it’s slang, the correct and very formal form is “Pardon?”
Selected comments on original post
You should add some more slangy ones like: Quoi de neuf ? Quoi de beau ? (What’s new? What’s up?) You feel very lame saying “ça va ?” and “comment allez vous ?” all the time as a French newbie.
Also, parting greetings! I think a lot of us anglophones get caught up on that. Salut can also mean “bye,” of course. Bonne journée and bonne soirée are more often said at parting, I think.
Well, let’s see if I can help you out with American English…
In-person greetings:
–“Hello” is pretty common, but it has a lot of syllables, so it usually gets shortened to “hi”.
–“Good morning” actually means good morning; “good afternoon” means good afternoon; and “good evening” means good evening. “Good night”, however, means goodbye (but only at night; if you say “good night” in the morning, people will think you have no idea what time it is).
–Because “good morning” isn’t used throughout the day (unlike “bonjour”), you need to pay attention to the clock if you want to say this. If you’re close to noon and unsure whether you’re before or after, best avoid “good morning” or “good afternoon” and instead say “hello” (or “hi”, which takes less effort), so people don’t think you have no idea what time it is.
–After the initial greeting, people often say “how’s it going?” or “how are you doing?” NOTE: they do not actually want to know how it’s going, or how you’re doing (see exception below). This is just a polite phrase, not an informational question, and if you actually tell them how you are they will start to squirm with boredom. Best answer with something completely non-substantive that shows you heard the question but understand that they don’t want an answer. “Fine” usually works.
–Conversely, when you ask someone how they’re doing, don’t be offended when they give you a single-word answer.
–Sometimes, however, people do genuinely want to know how you’re doing, and will be offended if you say “fine”. There is no way of knowing when this is the case. However you answer, you risk offending someone who wants to know or boring someone who doesn’t.
Telephone etiquette:
–“Hello” is generally acceptable for answering the phone.
–In the office, one might answer with one’s name and/or place of business.
–Caller ID has changed phone etiquette somewhat. If you see it’s someone you know, you can just launch into a conversation with them without the formality of a greeting. If you want to be especially polite, you can open with something like “[name]! I was just thinking of calling you!” They will appreciate that you went to the trouble of lying.
–If you see from the caller ID that it’s a telemarketer, the polite way to answer the phone is “STOP CALLING ME!” There are less polite ways to answer, but I won’t go into them here.
Hope this helps. 😉
Thanks, very useful. You should do a discussion, it would be helpful to have it on its own page for people who want to learn English, and are not interested in French.
annika_a [contributor]
I once heard that saying Bonjour late in the evening turns it into a pick up line. Do you agree? Or is it a different kind of “very weird”? 🙂
“Pick up” line = drague? No, it’s just not the right time, you can say it, but people will reply “bonsoir”, and you will say “ah, oui, pardon, bonsoir, c’est déjà le soir”.
Thank you! This is really useful! I have always wondered what ‘a tes souhaits’ meant because my French teacher told us to use it when someone is sneezing instead of ‘bless you’. However, she didn’t tell us how it was spelt or what it meant so I just thought it was spelt similar to ‘atishoo’ or something like that like ‘atissuet’ and that it was just a word to say to sort of acknowledge someone’s sneeze (:-D) because we don’t say ‘atishoo’ we just say ‘bless you’ and ‘atishoo’ was just the sound of the sneeze like onomatopoeia. It was interesting to find out that it actually meant something similar to ‘bless you’ (‘make a wish’) and that the word ‘atishoo’ probably came from the French (unless someone just heard someone sneezing, thought it sounded like ‘atishoo’ and then realised that it sounded like ‘a tes souhaits’ and it stuck! Although the first theory seems more likely). Thanks again! A lingot for you!
Thanks, I didn’t know atishoo. The funny thing is that is midway between “à tes souhaits” and the onomatopeia we say in French for a sneezing, “atchoum!”
Really? I didn’t know that ‘atchoum’ was the sound of a sneeze in French. Just wondering, do we really make an ‘m’ sound at the end of a sneeze? But then again do we even say ‘atishoo’?! A sneeze doesn’t really have a word – it is just a sort of explosion, isn’t it! I don’t know why we give these sort of sounds words.
The mystery of onomatopoeia, lol, why a French rooster make “cocorico!” rather than “cock-a-doodle-doos”.
(Sorry, only just seen your reply because I haven’t been on Duo for a few days!) It is amazing how different the onomatopoeia words are in different languages and how they sound really quite different to each other (and also to the actual sound that they depict)! However, about the rooster sound, I think that the English one sounds more like the rooster call than ‘cocorico’ because the sound has five syllables like ‘cock a doodle doo’ and ‘cocorico’ only has four, so the French one should be extended to something like ‘cocoricodoo’! Going back to my point about how the onomatopoeia words that we use sound nothing like the real sound, an example would be (although it is not exactly onomatopoeia because humans made it up and it is not a sound that we heard and tried to make ourselves) ‘awww’, when typing it out instead of saying it, to be the sound some people make when we see/hear something cute. It should be more like ‘arrgh’ but I think people would look at it and think of it as a sound someone makes when they are charging forward or something! It’s not a very good example, I know, but I think it is weird. Are there any other examples of French and English onomatopoeia sounding different? (P.S. sorry for writing such a long passage to read!) ;D
It depends the length of the syllabes, you can imagine the sound “cocoriii-co” here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0_TCmvvDQ4
When French people see something cute, I think the sound is “Ooooooh”.
For the difference between onomatopeias: I think almost all are different in English and in French, and all the animals sound too.
Cui- Cui (fr) / Piou-Piou (en) – a bird
Ouah Ouah (fr) / Wouarf (en) – .a dog
bêêê – a goat or a sheep
hiiiiii han – a donkey
hiiiii – a horse
sss – a snake
Meuh -a cow
Crac – a tree branch cracking
Miam Miam (fr) / Yum Yum (en) – I see a yummy cake.
Miaou (fr) / Miaow (en) – a cat Cocorico / cock-a-doodle-doo Aïe! (fr) /Ouch! (en) – it hurts. Chut (chuuut) (fr) / Shhhhh (en) – Be quiet! Beurk (fr) / Yuk – degusting! Pouah (fr) / Ugh – degusting!
Very helpful! Thanks for posting this.
I’m wondering about phone etiquette in France. If someone calls you, what would be the standard thing to say when you pick up the phone (formal and less formal)? If you call someone else, what’s the standard way to open the conversation? Are the usual in-person greetings carried over to telephone usage, or is it different?
It’s always “allô”. Some very impolite people (like me ^^) considers it means also “hello” and don’t start the conversation with “allô, bonjour” (except if I’m in a formal situation where I have to be very polite ^^)
Formal: “Allô! Bonjour… Je suis monsieur.X. Puis-je parler à monsieur Y s’il vous plaît?
Unformal: “Allô: Je suis X…, je voudrais parler à Y (s’il vous plaît).
If you are called, you also say “Allô???”
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