Learn how to say goodbye in French
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Today, we'll introduce parting greetings. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| A parting expression that we can use for all occasions is Au revoir, which literally means something like “until that we’re seeing”, and translated as "goodbye." |
| Au revoir. |
| Au revoir. |
| Let's break it down by syllable: Au revoir. |
| Now let's hear it again, Au revoir. |
| Let's look at the components. |
| The first word, au, means “to the” |
| Let's break down this word and hear it one more time, au. |
| And, au. |
| This is followed by revoir, which in French is “see again.” |
| Revoir. |
| Revoir. |
| And, revoir. |
| Altogether, that makkes Au revoir, which is translated as “goodbye.” |
| When parting or saying goodbye at night, the greeting is Bonne soirée. |
| Bonne soirée |
| Let's break it down by syllable: Bonne soirée. |
| Now let's hear it again, Bonne soirée. |
| Bonne soirée. |
| Let's look at the components. The first word, Bonne, means "good" in feminine. |
| Let's break down this word and hear it one more time, Bonne. |
| And, bonne. |
| Which is followed by Soirée, which in French is "evening". |
| Soirée |
| And, soirée |
| Altogether, that makes Bonne soirée, which literally means “good evening.” |
| In French, there are many other ways of saying goodbye, here we’ll cover just a few. |
| In French, a more casual way of saying “goodbye” is Ciao. |
| Ciao |
| Let's break it down by syllable: Ciao |
| Now let's hear it once again, Ciao. |
| This phrase is used among friends in a casual situations, and is similar to “bye” in English. |
| Another casual parting expression is À bientôt. |
| À bientôt. |
| Let's break it down by syllable: À bientôt. |
| Now let's hear it once agaiin, À bientôt. |
| Let's take a look at the components. The first word, À, means “to” or “at.” |
| Let’s hear it one more time, À |
| And À |
| This is followed by bien, which in French menas “well.” |
| Bien |
| Bien |
| So to recap, we have À bien. |
| This is followed by tôt, which in French is “early.” |
| Tôt |
| And, tôt |
| Altogether, we have À bientôt, which literally means “Until well early” and it’s translated as “see you soon!” |
| Literally, there are at least a dozen ways of saying goodbye in French, all depending on casualness, formality and time of day. |
| With au revoir, you have all your bases covered, so it’s important you adopt it. However, the other forms, such as À bientôt can add that extra touch that French themselves are very careful about. Be sure to study the PDF lesson to learn some of the important parting expressions. |
Outro |
|---|
| Okay, to close out this lesson, we'd like you to practice what you've just learned. I'll provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you're responsible for saying it out loud in French. You have a few seconds before I give you the answer, so bonne chance, that means “good luck” in French. Ok, here we go! |
| "Goodbye" - Au revoir. |
| Au revoir. |
| Au revoir. |
| "Have a good evening." - Bonne soirée. |
| Bonne soirée. |
| Bonne soirée. |
| “Bye” - Ciao. |
| Ciao. |
| Ciao. |
| This is the end of today’s lesson. See you soon! À bientôt! |
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