Hello, my name is Kain and love learning French. I was a student in French 1 in American high school for my sophomore year, and I'm planning to enter French II in my Junior year. Since I'm a student and experience all the awkward stages of learning...
Greetings are one of the most essential things in a language. We use greetings to be friendly or nice, welcome in a new person, or even to say hello to someone. Greetings are also used to say goodbye to a person. People usually don't associate goodbyes with greetings, but they are in a sense. In English we use very creative greetings such as: hello, hi, salutations, good day, greetings, sup', good evening, long time no see, how's it going, and even nice to meet you. French and even other languages, say their greeting based on age, how well you know a person, and the time of day. We do this an English also, but to a certain degree. I will be teaching you the different French ways of saying goodbye and hello. The pronunciation is quite simple, but at the same time extremely hard when you have no idea how to start. In English we call the part that breaks the previous sound and starts a new sound in the same word a syllable. However, it's sometimes hard to find syllables of a new word and language when you don't know how to say it. That's why we are taught a little game I like to call the syllabus hunt. The syllables hunt is played by saying the word out loud while clapping your hands slowly to the beat of the word. An example I will use will be the word clapping. Clapping has two syllables and those are clap and -ing. The way you would find the syllables are down below.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
When using this method, it's be easier to pronounce any word in general.
•Saying Hello• Salut /Saw-lou/ = Hello/ Hi [Informal] You'll use Salut the same way you would use yo or sup'. Basically you will say this word to a friend, family, or someone you are very close to. Please do not say Salut to your teacher, boss, anyone of high status, or someone you do not know. It is very rude to use in those situation unless you know them very well. It's the shame way as giving someone a fist pump instead of a handshake when meeting someone for the first time. However you may use this word for any time of day, and it can be used as hello and goodbye.
Bonjour /Bon-juooor/ = Hello; Good morning. [Formal] Bonjour is used for during the day, not at night. Whenever the sun is out (For me that will be 12AM - 6pm) or in the morning you will use Bonjour to say hello to a person you just meet, a teacher, your boss, or a person of higher status from you. You can use bonjour to address your family or friends, but it would be sort of weird to address you friends with a formal "how do you do" in English.
Bonsoir /Bon-Swall/ = Good evening. [Formal] • The Soir in Bonsoir is pronounced the way you would said sw in English. Example are the sw in... Swag Swamps Sweep Sweet Meanwhile the rest of the Soir in Bonsoir is pronounced with an "Aah" sound we would make in English.
