Greetings and politeness

A0 Foundation

Greetings and politeness

Handle the whole opening-closing loop of a short French interaction with calm, polite survival language.

Open a short interaction with a greeting that matches the situation.
Keep the middle of the exchange polite with basic request and repair formulas.
Close the interaction with thanks and a clear goodbye instead of fading out after the main request.

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Your first real French: greeting people correctly, choosing between tu and vous, and closing a conversation politely. These few phrases carry every interaction you will have.

Grammar focus: Greetings, goodbyes, and tu vs vous. Work through the explanations and tables below, hear the structures in the dialogue, then lock them in with the interactive drills, the writing task, and the speaking task.

Grammar focus

Greetings, goodbyes, and tu vs vous

French has two words for "you": tu for one person you know well (family, friends, children) and vous for one person you address formally (strangers, shopkeepers, officials) or for several people. Choosing correctly is basic politeness — when in doubt, use vous.

The essential greeting toolkit

Bonjour works all day until the evening, when bonsoir takes over. Salut is informal for both "hi" and "bye". To ask how someone is: Comment allez-vous ? (formal) or Ça va ? (informal). Standard replies: Ça va bien, merci. Et vous ? / Et toi ?

Formal vs informal

Situation	Formel (vous)	Informel (tu)
Hello	Bonjour	Salut
How are you?	Comment allez-vous ?	Ça va ? / Comment ça va ?
Goodbye	Au revoir	Salut / À plus
Please	S'il vous plaît	S'il te plaît
Thank you (reply)	Je vous en prie	De rien

Examples

Bonjour, madame. Comment allez-vous ?Good morning, madam. How are you?
Salut Léa, ça va ?Hi Léa, how are you?
Merci beaucoup ! — Je vous en prie.Thank you very much! — You are welcome.
Un café, s'il vous plaît.A coffee, please.
Au revoir et bonne journée !Goodbye and have a good day!
Bonsoir, je m'appelle Paul.Good evening, my name is Paul.

Watch out

Using tu with strangers, shopkeepers, or officials.

Default to vous with adults you do not know; wait for them to propose tu.

Unrequested tu can sound rude in France; vous is always safe.

Answering "merci" with "s'il vous plaît".

Reply with "je vous en prie" (formal) or "de rien" (informal).

S'il vous plaît means please — it is for requests, not replies.

Saying "bonjour" late in the evening.

Switch to bonsoir after about 6 p.m.

French speakers mark the evening with a separate greeting.

Grammar and usage

At this level, polite formula blocks are not decoration; they are the structure that keeps the interaction socially complete.
Practise tu and vous inside whole exchanges so the tone feels chosen and not accidental.
Keep one opening, one request formula, and one closing line together until the sequence starts feeling automatic.

Pronunciation

Say bonjour, merci, and excusez-moi as intact rhythm groups instead of isolated words dropped into the exchange.
Keep the politeness formulas light but complete so the listener hears confidence without stiffness.
Practise the opening and the goodbye as one pair so the interaction sounds finished from the start.

Vocabulary

salut
hi
au revoir
goodbye
s'il vous plaît
please
pardon
sorry / excuse me
bonjour
hello
enchanté
nice to meet you
comment tu t'appelles
what is your name
je m'appelle
my name is
merci beaucoup
thank you very much
excusez-moi
excuse me
de rien
you are welcome
je ne comprends pas
I do not understand
plus lentement
more slowly
répétez, s'il vous plaît
repeat, please
encore une fois
one more time
avec
with
sans
without
d'abord
first
ensuite
then
souvent
often
ensemble
together
parce que
because
tout de suite
right away

Dialogue

Claire

Bonjour ! Je m'appelle Claire. Et vous ?

Hello! My name is Claire. And you?

Nirmal

Enchanté. Moi, c'est Nirmal.

Nice to meet you. I am Nirmal.

Claire

Vous êtes d'où, Nirmal ?

Where are you from, Nirmal?

Nirmal

Je viens d'Inde, de Calcutta. Et vous ?

I come from India, from Kolkata. And you?

Claire

Je suis française, de Lyon. Vous habitez ici maintenant ?

I am French, from Lyon. Do you live here now?

Nirmal

Oui, j'habite à Paris depuis six mois. J'apprends le français.

Yes, I have been living in Paris for six months. I am learning French.

Claire

Votre français est déjà très bon !

Your French is already very good!

Nirmal

Merci, c'est gentil. Je pratique tous les jours.

Thank you, that is kind. I practise every day.

Reading

Mini reading

Amir entre dans une boulangerie. Il dit bonjour et demande un pain.

Avant de partir, il dit merci et au revoir.

Dans une première rencontre, on n'a pas besoin de longues phrases. On dit bonjour, on donne son nom, puis on pose une petite question à l'autre personne. Cette alternance simple aide la conversation a rester naturelle.

La politesse change peu la grammaire, mais elle change beaucoup la relation. Un merci, un excusez-moi ou un s'il vous plaît rend la demande plus douce et la réponse plus facile. Très tôt, ces formules doivent devenir automatiques.

En situation reelle, la meilleure stratégie n'est pas de faire semblant de comprendre. On peut demander de parler plus lentement, de répéter, ou de montrer l'information importante. Ces gestes simples gardent la conversation vivante.

Where does Amir go?
Which polite words does he use?
Which two moves create a simple first introduction?
Why is a short follow-up question useful here?

Practice studio

Turn this lesson into active recall: drill the vocabulary with spaced repetition, then test yourself on meaning and comprehension.

Writing task

Write a two-line greeting for a shop or classroom. Add one follow-up question after your self-introduction so the exchange can continue naturally. Add one repair sentence that you could use in class, in a cafe, or during travel. Keep the response short but complete: start clearly, add one detail, and end with one useful closing or follow-up line.

0 words0 / 23 target words used

salut
au revoir
s'il vous plaît
pardon
bonjour
enchanté
comment tu t'appelles
je m'appelle
merci beaucoup
excusez-moi
de rien
je ne comprends pas
plus lentement
répétez, s'il vous plaît
encore une fois
avec
sans
d'abord
ensuite
souvent
ensemble
parce que
tout de suite

Speaking task

Role-play a greeting, a thank you, and a goodbye. Introduce yourself, pause, then ask the same question back to an imaginary partner. Role-play one breakdown in communication and then repair it politely in two steps. Keep the response short but complete: start clearly, add one detail, and end with one useful closing or follow-up line.

Practice and drills

Pattern transfer

Take the model « Un café, s'il vous plaît. » (A coffee, please.) and change one detail — person, place, time, or object — so the sentence is true for you. Keep the structure intact.
Take the model « Merci beaucoup ! — Je vous en prie. » (Thank you very much! — You are welcome.) and change one detail — person, place, time, or object — so the sentence is true for you. Keep the structure intact.
Take the model « Au revoir et bonne journée ! » (Goodbye and have a good day!) and change one detail — person, place, time, or object — so the sentence is true for you. Keep the structure intact.
Write your adapted sentences down, then read each one aloud twice: once slowly for accuracy, once at natural speed.

Dialogue work

Read the dialogue « Premières présentations » aloud, taking one role; switch roles on the second pass.
Hide the French side and rebuild each line from the English translation, then compare with the original.
Pick the two most useful lines of the dialogue and memorize them as ready-made blocks.

Production

Do the writing task below in one sitting, without a dictionary on the first draft; allow yourself one revision pass afterwards.
Record yourself doing the speaking task, listen once, and redo only the sentence that broke down.
Compare your output against the answer key, then read the corrected versions aloud once so the repair becomes active.

Answer key

Exercise 1: prie — Merci beaucoup ! — Je vous en prie.
Exercise 2: va — Salut Léa, ça va ?
Exercise 3: Bonjour — Bonjour, madame. Comment allez-vous ?
Exercise 4: Au revoir — Au revoir et bonne journée !
Exercise 5: m'appelle — Bonsoir, je m'appelle Paul.
Exercise 6: vous — Un café, s'il vous plaît.
Quiz — How does Nirmal say where he comes from? → « Je viens d'Inde. ». Venir de + country states origin: je viens d'Inde, elle vient du Japon.
Quiz — What does « depuis six mois » tell us? → He has lived in Paris for six months and still does.. Depuis + present tense = an action that started in the past and continues now.
Quiz — How do you say “nice to meet you” in French? → enchanté. « enchanté » means “nice to meet you”.
Quiz — How do you say “my name is” in French? → je m'appelle. « je m'appelle » means “my name is”.

Common mistakes and repair

Using tu with strangers, shopkeepers, or officials.

Default to vous with adults you do not know; wait for them to propose tu.

Unrequested tu can sound rude in France; vous is always safe.

Answering "merci" with "s'il vous plaît".

Reply with "je vous en prie" (formal) or "de rien" (informal).

S'il vous plaît means please — it is for requests, not replies.

Saying "bonjour" late in the evening.

Switch to bonsoir after about 6 p.m.

French speakers mark the evening with a separate greeting.

Review and next steps

Greetings, goodbyes, and tu vs vous — watch for: Using tu with strangers, shopkeepers, or officials. Fix: Default to vous with adults you do not know; wait for them to propose tu.
Before the next lesson, rebuild « Bonjour, madame. Comment allez-vous ? » from its English (Good morning, madam. How are you?) without looking, then check every ending and accent.
Second check — Answering "merci" with "s'il vous plaît". Fix: Reply with "je vous en prie" (formal) or "de rien" (informal).

Coaching notes

Rehearse one tiny scene three times: greeting, request, thanks, goodbye.
If the request becomes stressful, protect the politeness loop first and simplify the middle of the sentence second.
Before moving on, check whether your short exchange sounds socially complete and not only understandable.

Related resources

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