When speaking to people in France or writing an email to a colleague, politeness is paramount.
Knowing that formal conversations are very different from informal conversations can help you use the right register when speaking in all situations.
Likewise, understanding that formal writing is different from informal writing can help you use the correct French pronouns and vocabulary in each circumstance.
Do you know how to use formal French?
If not, get all the information on formal French in this guide.
How is formal French different from informal French?
In some languages, such as French or Spanish, the formal grammatical structure speakers use is more explicit than in the English language.
The French language has an option for people to address people they don’t know and an option for those they do know.
This distinction between addressing familiar people and unfamiliar people is known as the T-V distinction.
So, when French speakers address a person they know, they will use the tu pronoun (which means “you” in English).
When French speakers address a person they don’t know, they will use the vous pronoun (“you” in English).
We can contrast this with the English language.
These days, English doesn’t have an explicit grammatical distinction between addressing someone formally and addressing someone informally.
English did have a pronoun for formal and informal situations in the 13th century. Ye was the formal way to address someone you don’t know, and the word thou was the relaxed way to address someone you do know.
This distinction has disappeared, and now, we only use you as the second person pronoun.
There’s no vous equivalent in English.
But, to return to French, there are many other rules to consider to master its formal register. Keep reading for the main ones.
Will the French language ever lose its formal vous pronoun?
It’s unlikely that the French language will entirely lose its formal vous pronoun.
This pronoun is commonly used in writing and dialogue, and it exists in historical and modern contexts.
Tu might become more commonplace in the future; just as cultural changes, idiomatic expressions and slang phrases emerge over the centuries.
Language can evolve, but vous will probably stick around in the future.
Rules to consider for speaking formal French
Here are some important rules you must consider with formal French.
1. Tu vs vous - when should you use these pronouns?
I’ve mentioned that native French speakers use tu with people they know and vous with people they don’t know.
There are some other reasons that you should use vous and not tu.
- Use vous if you’re in a professional environment with colleagues or writing an email to your boss
- Use vous if you’re speaking to a stranger on the street
- Use vous when you’re speaking or writing to a person who is older than you
- Use vous to show respect to someone
And here are the situations where you can use tu:
- Use tu when writing or speaking to close friends, siblings, and family members
- Use tu when speaking or writing to a partner, husband, or wife
- Use tu when writing or speaking to someone younger than you
- Use tu in informal chats (such as when texting a friend)
If you’ve already learned these rules in your French course, don’t forget to revise them.
2. Using ne for formal, negative sentences
There’s a difference between negating sentences in formal French situations and negation in sentences in informal cases.
When negating a sentence in formal contexts, use ne before the verb, but when you negate a sentence in informal contexts, you can omit the word ne as a more casual way of speaking.
Consider the difference between saying
Vous n’êtes pas heureux aujourd’hui
Tu es pas heureux aujourd’hui
These examples mean “you are not happy today,” but in the first formal sentence, you can see the word ne - in the second informal sentence, the speaker doesn’t need to use ne.
Keep in mind my first rule as well.
The other difference between these two sentences is that vous is used in the formal and tu in the informal sentences.
The bottom line is that in formal sit