Author: peter

Let’s list the most common French greetings

Bonjour – Good day
You probably heard of this one before. You can say this in any situation during the day. It is pretty formal but when in doubt – always use this one.

Bonsoir – Good evening
It is also quite formal but you can use it if it is after 5 PM and you are not sure what else you can use in your situation.

Salut – Hello/Hi
This one is a lot less formal and used mostly with friends. You can make it even less formal and say “Salut toi!” – hi to you!

Coucou – Hi
The most informal and kind of a cutesy way to say Hi to your closest friends.

Comment ça va – How is it going
Not too formal

Ça va – How is it going
Less formal

Comment allez-vous – How are you doing
This may be a little too familiar

Ça roule – How is it going
Ouoi de neuf – What’s up
Tu vas bien – Are you ok
These are all quite informal

Less commonly used greetings

Bon matin – Good morning
This is considered an Americanism. It is better not to use it in France and simply say Bonjour in the morning. But I heard it is ok to use in Quebec.

Wesh, wesh ma gueule – wassup, bro
This comes from Arabic and is quite dated and super casual. Use it only with good friends.

How to say goodbye in French

À plus, À plus tard – until later

À la prochaine – until next time

À bientot – see you soon

Salut – goodbye

The 4 phrases above are very casual

Au revoir – formal goodbye

Adieu – farewell

How to greet people in emails

Cher confrère – dear colleague (male)

Chère consoeur – dear colleague (female)

Monsieur …, Madame … – mister or ms (can add Cher/Chère in front for “dear”)

How to say goodbye in emails

(Bien/très) Cordialement – Regards

Bien à vous – all the best to you

Je vous prie d’agréer, Madame/Monsieur, l’expression de mes salutations distinguées. – I pray to agree Mr/Ms, expressing my most cordial greetings.

The last one is the most formal.

How to wish someone a good day/evening

Bonne journée – have a good day

Bonne fin de journée – have a good rest of the day

Bon après-midi – good afternoon

Bonne fin d’après-midi – have a good rest of the afternoon

Bonne soirèe – have a good evening

Bonne fin de soirèe – have a good rest of the evening

Bonne nuit – have a good night

How to respond to someone meeting you for the first time

Enchanté(e) – Nice to meet you
You need to add -e at the end if you say this to a woman.
You can also expand this
Enchanté(e) de faire votre connaissance – Enchanted by getting to know you

Ravi(e) de faire votre connaisance – Pleasure to meet you

What do you say if you meet someone for the second time during the day?

You can say Rebonjour but it’s relatively informal.

Do the French kiss each other on the cheek when they meet?

In France, there is a tradition of kissing your friends every time you meet. Women kiss their female friends pretty much every day. Men and women kiss if they are close friends. Men do not usually kiss each other. Interestingly hugging is considered a lot more invasive than kissing.

Today, we’re going on a journey to explore a fascinating part of the French language – articles. Articles are like little helpers for nouns (names of people, places, things, or ideas). They tell us if we’re talking about something specific or something general. There are three kinds of articles in French – definitive, indefinite, and partitive. Let’s learn about each one!

Definitive Articles

Our first stop is the land of definitive articles. These are the French words ‘le’, ‘la’, ‘l’, and ‘les’. They’re like the English words ‘the’. We use them when we’re talking about a specific thing or person. For example, ‘le chat’ means ‘the cat’. We’re talking about one particular cat here, not just any cat. Remember, ‘le’ is used for masculine nouns, ‘la’ for feminine nouns, ‘l’ before a vowel or silent ‘h’, and ‘les’ for plural nouns.

Let’s imagine we’re at a zoo. If you want to point out a specific elephant to your friend, you would say ‘l’éléphant’, which means ‘the elephant’. But if you’re talking about all the elephants in the zoo, you’d say ‘les éléphants’. Pretty neat, huh?

Indefinite Articles

Next, let’s hop onto the train to the world of indefinite articles. These are the French words ‘un’, ‘une’, and ‘des’. They are like the English words ‘a’, ‘an’, and ‘some’. We use them when we’re talking about a thing or person in general. For example, ‘un chat’ means ‘a cat’. It could be any cat, not a specific one.

So, back in our imaginary zoo, if you see a random elephant and you want to tell your friend, you would say ‘un éléphant’, meaning ‘an elephant’. If you spot a group of random monkeys playing, you’d say ‘des singes’, which means ‘some monkeys’.

Partitive Articles

Lastly, we will sail to the island of partitive articles. These are the French words ‘du’, ‘de la’, and ‘des’. They’re used when we’re talking about some amount of something, but not the whole thing. Think of it like the English words ‘some’ or ‘any’. For example, ‘du pain’ means ‘some bread’.

Imagine you’re at a bakery and you want to buy some bread, but not the whole loaf. You would ask for ‘du pain’. If you want some water at a restaurant, you’d ask for ‘de l’eau’.

Conclusion

We’ve journeyed through the fascinating world of French articles – from the specific definitive articles, the general indefinite articles, to the ‘some-amount’ partitive articles. Remember, they are like little helpers for nouns, and they tell us whether we’re talking about something specific, something general, or some amount of something. With these in your language backpack, you’re well on your way to mastering French. Happy learning!

Verbs are an important part of any language, be it English or French. “-re” to French verbs is what “to” is to English verbs. In English, “to” is the infinite used before the verbs, and in French, “-re” is the infinitive ending for the verbs.

French Verbs

French verbs can be split roughly into 5 main types. The irregular, stem-changing, and regular French verbs can be classified into three types based on their endings. The common French words are classified into –ER,-IR, and –RE ending verbs.

Verbs are conjugated to express different tenses of the same verbs. When it comes to the third group of the regular “-re” verbs in French, they share the pattern irrespective of the moods or tenses. You have to remove the “-re” ending and replace it with a suitable ending based on the tense and the person you are looking for. (First-person, second person or a third person; present tense or past tense)

The irregular French verbs fall under this group of verbs. When the ending is removed, it gives you the stem or radical verbs.

Here are 15 common “-re” French verbs along with their English meanings and the stem form of the word in both languages.

S. No	-RE Verbs	Stem Form
	French	English	French	English
1	Vendre	To sell	Vend	Sell
2	Repondre	To answer	Repond	Answer
3	Repandre	To spread; to scatter	Repand	Spread; scatter
4	Render	To return	Rend	Return
5	Pretender	To claim	Pretend	Claim
6	Perdre	To lose	Perd	Lose
7	Pendre	To hang, to suspend	Pend	Hang; suspend
8	Fondre	To melt	Fond	Melt
9	Étendre	To stretch	Etend	Stretch
10	Entendre	To hear	Entend	Hear
11	Descendre	To descend	Descend	Descend
12	Défendre	To defend	Defend	Defend
13	Attendre	To wait	Attend	Wait
14	Confondre	To confuse	Confond	Confuse
15	Correspondre	To correspond	Correspond	Correspond

Conjugating “–re” Verbs

Conjugating the verbs mentioned above require you to drop the “re” and add the required pronoun and ending to change the tense of the stem verbs. Let’s take a deeper look into this.

Present Tense

In the words mentioned above, removing the “to” before the English stem verbs will give its present tense. However, the French stem verbs will have different endings depending on the pronouns used before the verbs.

Here is an example to make it easier to understand. Let’s look at how the -re verb “attendre” will change when different pronouns are used for present tense:

Pronoun	Ending	Conjugated Stem Verb	English Version
j’	-s	j’attends	I wait
Tu	-s	tu attends	You wait
il/ elle/ on	–	il attend / elle attend / on attend	He wait/ she wait/ one waits
Nous	-ons	nous attendos	We wait
Vous	-ez	vous attendez	You wait
ils / ells	-ent	ils attendent / ells attendent	They wait

Notice how for English, the present tense of the stem verb stays the same but for in one case, but in French the endings differ based on the pronoun used before the verb.

Past Tense

In the verbs mentioned above, we use “ed” with the stem version of the verbs to get the past tense, but for “lost and “sell.”

For the French verbs given in the table above, the “-re” ending is replaced with “U.” “Vendre” becomes “Vendu”; “Descendre” becomes “Descendu” and so on. The pronouns added before the verb are similar to how they are used in the present tense.

Future Tense

For the English verbs mentioned in the table, you add the word “will ” before the stem version of the verb to get the future tense.

The “re” French verbs are conjugated, similar to how other verbs are conjugated to get the future tense, with one small difference. Instead of losing the entire “-re,” only the final “e” is dropped. The “r” stays, and the different endings are added to this version of the stem verb to get the future tense of the verbs.

Conclusion

Though the French verbs may sound complicated to conjugate, they follow the same style for all types of verbs. Understanding how the stem version of the verbs changes based on the pronoun used before the word is the key to successfully conjugating them. There are many more “-re” verbs apart from the ones mentioned above. However, they all follow the same rule when it comes to conjugating them.