Hello!
Use bonjour during the day. It is a friendly, polite way to start an interaction.
FREE BEGINNER LESSON 1 · FRENCH
French: First words
Learn to use first words in a practical conversation and understand a natural reply.
Neutral and informal · greetings. Learn the meaning, listen to the pronunciation, then practise in the interactive lesson.
Try your first lessonOpening vocabulary referenceUseful French phrases and their meanings
Hi!
Salut is informal: use it with friends and people you address as tu.
Thank you.
Merci is useful with anyone. You can add beaucoup to say thank you very much.
Goodbye.
This general farewell is suitable with strangers as well as people you know.
How the sentence works
Bonjour is a useful daytime greeting with friends or strangers. Salut is informal and can mean hi or bye. Merci works with anyone. Au revoir is a general goodbye; the final r is pronounced, while many other final consonants in French are silent.
A short conversation in French
Hello!
Hello!
Goodbye!
Words to recognise
hello
hi / bye (informal)
thank you
to see again
Listen to the whole phrase before focusing on each word. You can replay as often as you like, and the interactive lesson uses pictures and a short exchange to put the meaning in context.
Open the interactive lessonThe opening six teaching lessons are free, including the mini-tests after lessons three and six. A test accepts any answer and shows the score and corrections at the end. No typing or speaking aloud is required.
Keep learning French
Free five-minute audio lesson and MP3 · Language learning games
The pronunciation uses prepared synthetic voices. Credits and licences explain the free voice models. Independent native-speaker certification is not claimed.