Ten seconds. That is how long you have to not sound like a tourist in France. The word you pick for "hello" tells a French person whether you did your homework or opened a translation app in the doorway.
The good news: there are really only about ten greetings worth knowing, and the rules for choosing between them are simple. The better news is that you can say all of them correctly by the end of this page — tap the audio buttons and copy what you hear. This is not a grammar lesson. It is the shortest path from zero to a greeting that lands.
👋 The 10 French Greetings You Actually Need
Each one has an audio button. Tap it, say it out loud, move on. Pronunciation in French is not negotiable — reading the spelling and guessing is exactly how people end up saying bone-jur.
1. Bonjour — (formal, all day until evening) The default. If you only learn one word, learn this one. Shops, offices, strangers, your partner's grandmother. Saying it when you walk into a bakery is not politeness in France, it is the law of the land.
2. Bonsoir — (formal, evening) Same job as bonjour, after roughly 6pm. Switching to it at the right moment is a tiny signal that you know what you are doing.
3. Salut — (informal) Friends, classmates, colleagues you already like. Never to a shopkeeper you have not met. It also means goodbye, which makes it the most efficient word in the language.
4. Coucou — (very informal, warm) Close friends and family. Playful, slightly childlike, extremely common in text messages. Use it wrong and it is not rude, just odd — like calling your boss "buddy".
5. Allô — (phone only) Only when answering a phone. Never as a greeting in person. Ever.
6. Bonjour à tous — (formal, to a group) Walking into a meeting, a class, a waiting room. One phrase covers everybody.
7. Enchanté — (formal, first meeting) Literally "delighted". Said while shaking hands the first time you meet someone. Women often say enchantée — same sound, extra e.
8. Ça va ? — (informal, how are you) The follow-up to salut. It is a greeting, not a real question. The answer is ça va, said back.
9. Comment allez-vous ? — (formal, how are you) The polite version. Use with anyone you would call vous.
10. Rebonjour — (neutral, second time today) Because saying bonjour twice to the same person in one day is a small social crime, and the French built a word to avoid it.
📊 Which One, When
Important
The single rule that covers 90% of cases: if you would use "vous" with the person, say bonjour. If you would use "tu", salut works.
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⚠️ The Two Mistakes Beginners Always Make
Mistake 1: skipping the greeting entirely. In English you can walk into a shop and say "do you have batteries?" In France that reads as aggressive. Bonjour comes first, always, before any question. Locals notice its absence far more than they notice a bad accent.
Mistake 2: using salut with strangers. Textbooks list salut next to bonjour as if they were interchangeable. They are not. Salut to a pharmacist or a police officer is the equivalent of "yo" — nobody will correct you, and everybody will register it.
Notes
A third, smaller one: the "r" in bonjour is made at the back of the throat, not the tip of the tongue. This is the sound that gives every learner away, and it is impossible to fix by reading. You have to hear it and copy it.
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🗣️ The Part a Blog Post Cannot Do
You now know which greeting to use. What you do not have is the thing that actually matters when a French person is standing in front of you: the reflex. Knowing bonjour and producing it, at speed, with the right vowel, without a two-second pause — those are different skills, and only one of them is learned by reading.
That takes someone to talk to. Umi is our AI tutor: it listens to you speak French, hears your accent, and corrects it in the moment — the way a teacher would, except at 11pm on a Tuesday when you finally have twenty minutes.
Important
You are already in the mood to learn French. That feeling lasts about an hour. Say bonjour to Umi and have a real French conversation right now — 14-day free trial, 30 minutes a day, no lesson planning required. Start your free trial
🇫🇷 Where to Go Next
If you are still shopping around and want to know what learning French with an app is actually like in 2026, we tested the main ones here: Best Apps to Learn French in 2026.
Otherwise — the ten greetings above are genuinely enough to get through your first week in France. Learn the audio, say bonjour before every question, and keep salut for people who have already told you their first name.
Bonne chance. Or as you can now say properly: .
