Greetings in French: bonjour, salut, au revoir, IPA and regional use

Bonjour, bonsoir and the art of saying hello in French

Bonjour is literally good day, bon plus jour, and it is the default among greetings in French: to a neighbour, a shop assistant, a bus driver, a colleague, at nine in the morning or four in the afternoon. French has no separate everyday word for good morning; the one day greeting covers it. Bonsoir, good evening, replaces bonjour once the day turns to evening, for someone arriving at a dinner or walking into a shop after dark.

In France a greeting is a condition for everything that follows. Entering a small shop, a bakery or a doctor's waiting room, people say bonjour to the room before asking for anything, and a question asked without it can sound abrupt. Adding a title makes it warmer and more formal at once: bonjour madame, bonjour monsieur, bonsoir mesdames et messieurs, with no surname.

The night has its own phrase, and it is not a greeting at all. Bonne nuit is said only when someone goes to bed, to a child at bedtime or a partner switching off the light. Leaving a party at midnight, French speakers say bonne soirée or simply au revoir.

Tu or vous: choosing the right form

French has two words for you, and every greeting that asks a question has to pick one. Vous is the polite form for strangers, older people, customers and anyone in a professional setting; tu is used with friends, family, children and pets. Comment allez-vous ? and comment vas-tu ? both mean how are you, but they say very different things about the relationship.

Switching from vous to tu is a small event in itself, often proposed by the older or more senior person: on peut se tutoyer ? The verbs for it are tutoyer and vouvoyer. Wikipedia's article on the T–V distinction traces the split to Middle French, when vous was what upper-class speakers used with one another, and notes reports from 2012 that vous was losing ground on social media.

Ça va ? stands outside the choice, since it uses no pronoun at all. It is the casual question among people who would say tu to each other, and the reply repeats it: ça va, et toi ? Among colleagues who still say vous, ça va ? is still common in passing, but comment allez-vous ? is the safe form with anyone met for the first time.

Salut, coucou and other informal greetings in French

Salut works at both ends of a meeting. It is hi when friends meet and bye when they part, and Wiktionnaire labels it familiar. Students, teenagers and friends of any age use it; addressing a stranger or a superior with salut sounds too casual.

Coucou is softer still. Larousse describes it as a cheerful call to catch someone's attention when appearing by surprise, and in everyday use it is a friendly hi between close friends and family, at the start of a text message or a voicemail. Among adults who barely know each other it can feel overfamiliar.

Leave-taking has a wider choice than the classroom au revoir. À bientôt promises a meeting soon, à demain tomorrow, à plus tard later, and among friends à plus is clipped further and written A+ in text messages, as Wiktionary records. Bonne journée and bonne soirée are wishes used when parting, for a good rest of the day or evening; they are not greetings for arrival.

La bise: how many kisses on the cheek

Between friends and family, greetings in French are often physical. La bise is a light touch of the cheeks with a kissing sound, given on meeting and again on leaving, and its exact form varies from region to region more than any word in the table above.

The number of kisses depends on where the speakers grew up. The survey site combiendebises.free.fr, which collects answers by département and was reported on by Connexion France, finds two kisses the most common count overall. Finistère in Brittany is the region of a single kiss, three are favoured in parts of the south and south-west, and four are given in some departments south-east of Paris such as the Yonne and the Aube. Most regions offer the right cheek first; in the south-west, Provence and Corsica the left cheek usually comes first.

Greetings in Quebec French

Quebec uses the same bonjour, but at both ends of a conversation. The Office québécois de la langue française notes that in Quebec bonjour is commonly said during the day when leaving someone, a use attested in French since at least the 17th century; in official settings, such as the end of a business call, the office still recommends au revoir.

Bon matin, modelled on the English good morning, is heard in Quebec, and the same office discourages it in writing and formal speech in favour of bonjour. For a casual hi at any hour it lists salut and allô, so allô in Quebec is far more than a telephone word. On leaving, Quebec speakers wish bon avant-midi for the rest of the morning, bon après-midi, bonne fin de journée or bonne soirée.