French phrases you must know

common-French-phrases

 

French phrases you must know

 

French is spoken by 220 million people in the world (with 80 million being native speakers). It is the official language in 29 countries. It is the language of literature, poetry and cinema. In pop culture French is referred to as the language of love, maybe because it sounds like a seductive whisper. On March 20th the UN French Language Day will be celebrated to promote multilingualism and cultural diversity within the organization and beyond.

French is a Romance language with a Latin writing system. It was the successor of Latin and took its place as the language of international relations in 17th century and it was replaced by English in the 20th. French is one of the official languages of the United Nations, European Union, NATO and more international organizations.

French vocabulary derives from Latin words. The French counting system can be a bit confusing as some names of numbers are more complex than you’d expect them to be i.e. 80 is ‘quatre-vingts’, which means ‘four twenties’. The word order usually is subject>verb>object.

In order to celebrate the French language we have prepared 20 popular French phrases you ought to know…

 

A bientôt. – See you soon.

Allez! – Come on!

Bonne journée ! – Have a nice day!

Ça fait longtemps! – Long time no see!

Ce n’est pas grave. – No problem.

Ce n’est pas ma faute. – This is not my fault.

Enchanté(e) – Pleased to meet you

J’aime beaucoup. – I really like it.

J’arrive! – I’m on my way!

Je n’en crois pas mes yeux! – I can’t believe my eyes!

Je n’en reviens pas. – I can’t believe it.

Je ne comprends pas. – I don’t understand.

Je ne sais pas. – I don’t know.

Laisse tomber – Forget it

N’importe quoi – whatever, anything or nonsense

Ne t’en fais pas. – Don’t worry.

On ne sait jamais. – You never know.

On y va? – Shall we go?

Qu’est-ce que vous avez dit? – What did you say?

Santé! – Cheers!

 

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“The status of French in the world”. Retrieved 23 April 2015.

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