"Oui, bonsoir" (pronounced "wee bon-swar") is a French phrase that means "Yes, good evening" or "Yes, hello" in the evening, combining the affirmative "oui" (yes) with the common greeting "bonsoir" (good evening). It's used to acknowledge someone and greet them as evening sets in, often when entering a place or responding to a greeting like "Hello?" or "Yes?".
Oui, bonsoir. Yes, have a good evening.
If you say something has a certain je ne sais quoi, you'll sound fancy instead of inarticulate. In French, je ne sais quoi literally means "I don't know what." It's used to capture an indescribable, special distinguishing feature, or to name some unnamable quality.
In most cases, we use oui (yes) and non (no) in French the same way as in English. However, if someone asks you a negative question or makes a negative statement and you want to disagree with it (i.e. answer in the positive) then use si instead of oui.
To respond to "Ça va?", use simple, context-dependent answers like "Ça va bien, merci, et toi/vous?" (Very well, thanks, and you?) for positive, polite replies, or "Pas mal" (Not bad), "Bof" (Meh/So-so), or even "Ça va mal" (Not well) for more nuanced feelings, often followed by asking back "Et toi?" (informal) or "Et vous?" (formal).
Ans: In French slang, a “hot girl” can be referred to as a “bombasse.” This informal term is often used to describe someone very attractive. To get comfortable with using this and other slang in everyday conversation, consider La Forêt class for immersive learning with expert French speakers.
To say 1-10 in French, you say: un (1), deux (2), trois (3), quatre (4), cinq (5), six (6), sept (7), huit (8), neuf (9), dix (10), with pronunciations like "uhn," "duh," "twah," "kat," "sank," "sees," "set," "weet," "nuhf," and "dees," which you can practice with resources like Study.com.
You can also be more romantic with such French phrases as bonne nuit mon amour (goodnight my love), bonne nuit mon chéri (goodnight darling when talking to a man) or bonne nuit ma chérie (goodnight darling when talking to a woman).
16. Mangez bien, riez souvent, aimez beaucoup. Meaning: “Eat well, laugh often, love a lot.” “Live life to the fullest” or carpe diem (“seize the day”). Use this positive French saying to console a friend that is having a hard time.
MDR. MDR in French stands for Mort de rire. The phrase literally means “Dead from laughter” but a more appropriate translation is “laughing out loud” or the more text-friendly “LOL”.
In informal spoken French, we often skip pronouncing 'ne' with negated verbs. So if I was speaking in a casual context, I'd say, “Je sais pas.” To go even further, many French speakers blend the je and sais into something that might sound like “jsais pas” of even “shay pas.” This is how I say it!
Three Ways to Reply to 'merci'
Bonswa, on the other hand, would be used to greet someone in the afternoon and evening. Its mainland French alternative, bonsoir, literally translating to “good evening,” is only appropriate after sunset.
According to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), which trains U.S. diplomats, French is among the easiest languages for English speakers to learn. The FSI estimates it takes about 30 weeks, or roughly 600-750 study hours, to reach conversational proficiency in French.
These French language levels provide a way of describing a person's French language proficiency. There are six levels of French : A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2. A1 is the lowest level in terms of ability and C2 is the highest. Our French learning courses focus on conversational, reading, writing & listening french skills.
To respond to "Ça va?", use simple, context-dependent answers like "Ça va bien, merci, et toi/vous?" (Very well, thanks, and you?) for positive, polite replies, or "Pas mal" (Not bad), "Bof" (Meh/So-so), or even "Ça va mal" (Not well) for more nuanced feelings, often followed by asking back "Et toi?" (informal) or "Et vous?" (formal).
To signal that you want to pay in a café or restaurant, you can use: L'addition, s'il vous plaît. The bill, please.
The 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle) in French learning means focusing on the 20% of vocabulary, grammar, and phrases that handle 80% of everyday conversations, allowing for rapid progress in real-life situations like the bakery or with neighbors, rather than getting bogged down in less-used details. This involves prioritizing high-frequency words, essential sentence structures, and common tenses to achieve practical fluency faster, using comprehensible input (listening/reading) for the majority of study time and targeted output (speaking/writing) for the rest.
32. Srx. Just as we say “Seriously?” in English, the French have their own version too for conveying disbelief: srx = sérieux.