Armed with the knowledge you’ve gained with us, you’ll dive confidently into your first French conversation. How do you start it? Always with the word meaning “Open Sesame” for any conversation in French: “Bonjour”.<\/p>\n
Whether you meet the neighbor, want to get someone’s attention in a store, or greet the bus driver; you always start with this magic word. That sounds easy, but there are rules on ‘bonjour’.<\/p>\n
When you meet someone for the second time in a day, you don’t say ‘bonjour’ again. If you do, it will seem as if you have already forgotten the previous meeting. So quite rude, and then you can just get a pissed off ‘re-bonjour’ as an answer. You simply do not wish each other a good day more than once.<\/p>\n
Second line: Say ‘Bonjour’ until 6 p.m. Then you switch to ‘bonsoir’. Is the night starting? Then you keep saying ‘bonsoir’, because ‘bonne nuit’ is only used as a good night wish.<\/p>\n
Of course, every rule has exceptions, and so here too. A telephone call does not start with ‘Bonjour’, but with ‘\u00c2llo?’. When greeting friends, use “Salut” (Hi). It is good to know that you never answer a ‘Salut’ with ‘Bonjour’.<\/p>\n