Common Phrases (Bonjour, Idioms, Liaisons, Enchaînement, Il y a)

Bonjour !

Bonjour is a universal greeting that can be spoken to anyone at any time. In France, greeting people is very important, and some will even say bonjour aloud when entering a public room or bus. Culturally it is considered good manners to greet shopkeepers and staff upon entering a store or restaurant, and the height of rudeness to ignore them. Bon après-midi is often used as a farewell in the afternoon, while bonsoir is an evening greeting.

• Greetings: bonjour, bonsoir
• Farewells: bonne journée, bon après-midi, bonne soirée, bonne nuit

Note: après-midi can be masculine or feminine, so you can also use bonne après-midi.

Idioms

Many words or phrases cannot be translated literally between English and French because their usages are idiomatic. For instance, consider « Ça va ? », which means "How are you?" The literal translation of the French is "That goes?", but this is nonsensical in English. It is very important to identify idioms in both languages and learn how to translate them properly.

Liaisons

In a liaison, an otherwise silent ending consonant is pushed to the next word, where it's pronounced as part of the first syllable. Like elisions, this prevents consecutive vowel sounds. Liaisons are possible whenever a silent ending consonant is followed by a word beginning in a vowel sound. Some liaisons are mandatory, some are forbidden, and some are optional.

Here are some mandatory liaisons, along with approximate pronunciations:

• Articles and adjectives with nouns. For example, un homme [œ̃-nɔm], mon orange [mɔ̃-nɔrɑ̃ʒ], or deux hommes [døz-ɔm]. * Pronouns and verbs. For example, nous allons [nu-zalɔ̃] or est-il [ε-til].
• Single-syllable adverbs and prepositions. For instance, très utile [trε-zytil] or chez elle [ʃe-zεl].

Liaisons are forbidden:

• Before and after et ("and").
• After singular nouns (including proper nouns and names).
• After inversions (which you'll learn in "Questions").
• Before an aspirated H (e.g. héros - "hero").
• After a nasal sound, excluding un, on, and en which do form a liaison.

Note that some consonants take on a different sound in liaisons, and it's important to pronounce these correctly when speaking.



Liaison rules vary among speakers, particularly across dialects, and fewer liaisons tend to appear in casual and slow speech.

Enchaînement

In enchaînements, ending consonant sounds are pushed onto the next word if it begins in a vowel. This is essentially the same as a liaison, except that the consonant sound wasn't silent beforehand. For instance:

• elle est is pronounced like [ɛ-lɛ].
• mange une pomme is pronounced like [mɑ̃ ʒyn pɔm].

The Impersonal Expression IL Y A

Impersonal expressions are phrases where there isn't a real subject. For instance, in the phrase "It is snowing" (Il neige), "it" doesn't refer to anything. It's a dummy subject that exists just to maintain the sentence structure.

One of the most common impersonal expressions is il y a, which is an idiom for "there is" or "there are".

• Il y a une fille ici. — There is a girl here.

You will learn more about impersonal expressions in "Verbs Present 1".