Greetings and Forms of Address

Context:

This lesson should be viewed as a continuation of Lesson 2. Indeed, in that lesson, we learned how to introduce ourselves when meeting somebody for the first time, how to give our names and how to ask someone’s name in various ways.

In this lesson, we expand on it and we now learn how to say things such as “Good morning“, “Hello“, “How are you?“, etc.
Tip: The vocabulary here is pretty straightforward and is therefore quickly acquired. For better result, you will probably need a partner to do the short dialogues that follow.

Goals:

In this lesson, you will learn the common forms of address in French

→ the common forms of address in French
→ which greetings to use when addressing a friend or when you in a more formal context. (Tu and Vous)

Chapter 1 –> Lesson 6:

Level of difficulty: Very Easy

You have probably heard it or said it yourself a million times but how about starting with the most obvious stuff?

 Bonjour   Good morning.
 Bonsoir   Good evening.
 Salut.   Hi/Hello.
 Au revoir   Bye bye.
A bientôt   See you soon.

Let’s make it a bit more interesting by adding a few more words to them…Please note that there are many different ways and expressions we can list below, but for the sake of simplicity and space, I am listing standard expressions here.

QUESTIONS POSSIBLE WAYS TO ANSWER
Bonjour. Ça va? Good morning. How are you?/(Are you OK?)

Bien, merci.  Fine, thanks.

Bonsoir. Ça va bien?  Good evening. How are you?/(Feeling great?)

Pas mal, merci. Not bad, thanks.

The following greeting with Salut can be considered casual. Use salut in occasions where you do not need to be too formal
Salut. Je m’appelle Frédéric Hello. My name’s Frederic

Here, as an answer you may simply repeat the same sentence including your own name.

For example, Salut, je m’appelle Herman.
In what follows, you are asking a non-intimate “how are you?” . In this case, the subject pronoun vous must be used.
Comment allez-vous?  How are you?

Bien merci. (or Pas mal, merci. Et vous?)   Fine, thanks. And you?.

In the following example, a teacher (non-intimate) uses “tu” to address a student when asking how are you?, while the child uses “vous” to address the teacher.
Comment vas-tu?   “How are you?”

Bien, monsieur. Et vous?  Fine. And you, sir?

In the following example, we will use the subject pronoun Tu to ask “how are you?” when addressing an intimate.
Tu vas bien?   “You’re doing OK?”

Oui, et toi?  Yes, and you?

What’s the deal with Tu and Vous?

Tutoyer or Vouvoyer?That is the question. Tutoyer means to address someone with the subject pronoun TU and Vouvoyer means to address somebody using VOUS.

Well, you need to be careful with these two subject pronouns. As you probably remember from a previous lesson, they both correspond to English you, so it can be very easy, especially for English speakers, to confuse one for the other, which, in some cases, can cause you some embarrassment. I will explain…
Vous is used for those older than you and with people you don’t know well or with whom you wish to keep a certain distance. Tu, on the other hand, is used among peers, with friends and other students. You also use tu with family members in most cases. So if you address someone with tu, that is, as if they were a peer or a common friend, they can take offense or perceive it as a lack of manners on your part. To be safe, make sure to vouvoyer if you are not sure whether to be formal or not. Better leave a nice impression than be sorry and come across as a rude person.

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