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How are you in French

How are you in French

See, hear and learn the 3 most common ways to say how are you in French: comment-allez vous, comment vas-tu and (comment) ça va?

 

When my niece who learned how to speak French taking French classes saw me this new year, she greeted me with : ‘comment-allez vous?’ in order to ask me how are you in French. Quite impressive for the following reason:

Comment-allez vous is the most formal and polite way to ask somebody how are you in French. When you are amongst friends, you would use the more informal or casual way to say how are you: comment vas-tu?

  • Comment means "how" in French.
  • Allez-vous and vas-tu are 2 ways to say "go you" in French: the first way is the formal and utterly polite way, the latter is the one you will use amongst your friends or who-ever you feel related to on a similar level (colleagues at work, your brothers and sisters…).

Then there is the third way to say how are you in French that you will hear a lot: (comment) ça va? , translated from French to English as : "it goes"? If you only want to remember one way of saying how are you in French, then remember ça va:

  • as you can both use it in formal and informal conversation – be it more informal than formal – and
  • it’s a perfect way to say "that all goes well".

However if you want to impress people with your politeness, then repeat what my niece said: comment allez-vous? You can’t go wrong with this way of saying how are you in French. And when the French person feels that you are ‘allowed’ to use the more casual way of saying how are you in French, he will answer your question with comment vas-tu.

 

How to say how are you in French audio examples

 

Below some common phrases that you can hear when you greet somebody in French,
illustrated with images from Megavocab Rocket French – the best way to learn over 1000 common French phrases easily
:

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How are you in French audio transcript

  • Comment allez-vous? How are you? (formal-polite)
  • Comment ça va? How are things going with you?
  • Bonjour. Goodmorning / Goodday
  • Comment ça va? How are things going with you?
  • (Pas) très bien. (Not) very well.
  • Et vous? And you? (formal-polite)
  • Et toi? Comment vas-tu? And you? How are you (in a more casual French way)

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How to say how are you in French

How to say how are you in French

Listen to the most common ways how to say how are you in French: part of our free French language lessons online: French greetings.

 

Listen how to say how are you in French

 

Download and listen to the French audio how to say how are you in French (mp3, 4KB)

 

  • Polite: Bonjour. Comment allez-vous? Goodday/hello, how are you?
     
  • Casual: Salut. Comment vas-tu? Hi, how are you?
     
  • Pas mal. Not bad.

 

Learn how to speak French by simply listening and repeating the above French words as good as you can.

 

Casual hi, how are you in French.

 

In this online French class you will learn the difference between the formal and casual French language.

 

When talking to friends or family, the French say: Comment vas-tu? These French words literary translate to English as:

 

  • comment : how
     
  • vas : you go (casual)
     
  • tu : you (casual)

 

When the French become more formal and start talking to people they respect or meet for the first time, the French say Comment allez-vous? These French words literary translate to English as:

 

When talking to friends or family, the French say: Comment vas-tu? These French words literary translate to English as:

 

  • comment : how
     
  • allez : you go (formal)
     
  • vous : you formal)

 

Casual ‘tu’ – formal ‘vous’

 

The French have 2 ways of translating the word "you":

 

  • When talking to friends, they will use tu when they want to point to one person.
     
  • When talking to people they never saw before or in any case they want to point to more than one person, they will use vous.

 

French language courses will give you an extensive list when to use ‘tu
or ‘vous‘ but:

 

Rule of thumb: always use vous!

 

The first time you meet a French person, he will address you with "vous". When you get to know each other better (after a few bottles of French wine or after a few days interacting with each other on a more personal level), suddenly the French person will start using "tu".

 

Once that happens, you can safely start using "tu" as well. As usual follow the golden rules:

 

  • be a parrot: always repeat what you hear
     
  • in France, do what the French do

 

Hello, how are you in French – Not bad.

 

Listen again to the French audio how to say how are you in French and notice the last sentence:

 

  • Pas mal : Not bad

 

For now just notice that when you see the word "pas" in a French sentence, the French are expressing "not …":

 

  • pas bien : not good
     
  • pas mal : not bad

 

How to say how are you in French summary

 

This French lesson seems short but you learned 2 very important things in the French language:

 

  • the difference between formal and casual French
     
  • an introduction how the French say ‘not’

 

Read our previous post to learn more ways how to say how are you in French.

French Greetings

french-greetings

Enjoy speaking French greetings in less than 10 minutes! Download this free French language CD snippet. Listen and repeat the French words to learn how to speak French fast: about 10 minutes from now you will be able to fluently pronounce and remember all common French greetings!

 

Common French greetings

 

Did you ever tell yourself: "I want to learn French but I don’t have any time to enroll in a French course"?

 

The good news is that you can speak French or learn any language for that matter at home. Better still, thanks to French language CDs you can learn French anytime, anywhere.

 

These French language CDs will make you learn French easily, just like you learned your mother language: by listening and repeating.

 

Download these French Greetings (782KB – Learn French mp3) as an example. You will not only hear the French greetings, but you will be asked to repeat them. After you finished listening and repeating the French words, you will be surprised how fast they are embedded in your memory already.

 

Learn French greetings

 

Download and listen to the French Greetings anywhere you can: in your car, going to your office or in the shower and make sure you repeat the French words out loud!

 

This way you will learn French greetings without any effort as you can rewind the audio over and over again.

 

Greetings in French:

 

  • Paul: Salut Claire.
  • Claire: Salut, Paul. Comment ça va?
  • Paul: Bien merci, et toi?
  • Claire: Je vais très bien.

 

French language translation to English:

 

  • Paul: Hi Claire.
  • Claire: Hi Paul. How’s it going?
  • Paul: Good thanks, and you?
  • Claire: I’m going very well. (I am very fine)

 

French Christmas greetings

 

"Joyeux Noël" are the French greeting words you will hear around Christmas. Listen to the French pronunciation at : French Christmas Greetings.

 

How to greet people in French

 

You can have a look in our previous post how to greet someone in French: it does involve kissing… French greetings and salutations do differ depending on where you are in France:

 

  • most greeting in French is accompanied by one kiss on the left cheek and one on the right
  • in the south of France, the French greet by kissing once on the right once on the left
     
  • in Paris you could get double as much kisses: right, left right left
     
  • and in the west of France people will only give one kiss.

 

When you are new in France, you simply don’t join in the kissing and stick to the French greeting phrases you learned in the audio of this page.

 

When you don’t know when to use formal French greetings, informal greetings or French business greetings you have 2 options:

 

  1. always use Bonjour: as that’s both a formal as informal greeting, or:
     
  2. simply repeat the French language greetings you heard when the French person greeted you.

 

Simply repeating what you hear is the most simple and always accurate way to greet people in France!

 

Learning French greetings with French language CDs

 

Today you have learned not only the most common French greetings, you also learned that you can learn French fast by just listening to French language CDs.

 

When you are serious about learning French and you want to speak French fast and fluently, we do recommend you buy the complete set of French Language CDs now and learn more French words in the next few minutes! (Only $99.97: that’s 3 cent less than what I charge for 1 hour of teaching French.)