French Kissing in France

Salut !

Ça va ?

After a quiet month of August in Grenoble (perfect time to write and shoot new videos for you!),
it’s « la rentrée » in France: the children are back to school. And the parents back to work.

So, as you may start work again too,
let’s start September with a light and funny topic: French kisses!

Between « la bise », « les baisers » and « embrasser »…
French kissing is very codified and full of classic expat mistakes.
The ones that will make French people laugh but you might blush…

And on top of that, you have the mythical « French kiss »!


Today, on Comme une Française TV, I’ll give you 5 types of French kisses in French and tell you how to French kiss… in France.




Et toi ?
Did you know the difference between these kinds of kisses?
I’m SURE you have a nice anecdote to share about kissing in France!
Tell us (in French if you dare) in the comments below the video!

Gros bisous et bonne rentrée !

Géraldine

Join the conversation!

  • I was reasonably fluent in French when I visited a French official in Canberra (Australia). He was a conseiller cultural so pretty high-up the ladder at the French Embassy. He had visited our organization in a regional city and was so pleased with my hospitality that he invited me to stay with him and his wife for several days in our capital city. On the last day he organized a party for me with French visitors, artists and another embassy official. After many hours of fun food and drinks I was chatting with him and the other embassy official when they asked me about my older daughter who was in secondary school and about 14. I joked and said that she had been seen in the adjacent pine forest à baiser un garçon. (Kissing a boy, according to my school French since I hadn’t needed the kiss word in my more recent, more proficient, French). When they asked me a THIRD time about my beautiful innocent daughter, the tears running down their cheeks into their empty French champagne glasses, warning bells about ‘un baiser’ started to ring in my ears! Too late! I had used the verb three times.

  • Merci bien for finally clarifying the difference between bises and bisous. No one has been able to explain it clearly…until now.

  • Je n’ai jamais entendue dire que “rouler un patin” c’est un moyen de dire “french kiss” et les autres expressions aussi! Je suis ravie de finalement apprendre ça! Merci.

    • Si je peux me permettre, on utilise l’expression “rouler un patin” lorsqu’on parle entre amis de ce qu’on a fait avec la personne concernée, pas lorsqu’on évoque ce qui s’est passé avec la personne en face.
      En d’autres termes, si je dis à mon amie : “je peux te rouler un patin ?”, il y a des chances qu’elle le prenne très mal. En revanche, parlant à mes amis, je peux leur dire “j’ai roulé un patin à X” …

  • Bonjour Géraldine,
    C’est Le même dans mon coin dans le Gard. On fait la bise trois fois comme le dit Jerry d’ Arles. En fait quand ma fille a passé une année dans Compiègne les gens savent qu.elle a grandi pour quelques années dans le Sud. Nous sommes américains, mais j’avais voulu mes enfants passer quelques années grandit en France, donc nous avons vécu pendant cinq ans près d’Uzès ! J’adore votre programmes vidéos!

  • Je suis américaine et j’ai plusieurs amis français de longue date qui me sont très chers. Je les vois lors de mes visites en France et je les écris fréquemment par mail et par la poste. Je savais qu’ils me prenaient en grande affection quand ils commençaient à signer leurs petits mots avec “Gros bisous” (au lieu de “Bises”) comme si j’étais de la famille. J’en étais très émue.

    • Je suis d’accord avec vous Ann! Une amie qui m’a écrit “coucou” au début de notre amitié m’a pris par surprise! Mais c’est naturel en France.

  • Merci, Geraldine, pour cette lecon aux bisous, toujours quelque chose qui me confonde en France! Ma question: avec quelle joue commence-t-on?!

  • Salut Geraldine 🙂
    Last year en vacançe dans Arles sur Rhône … our host who owned the apartement was very friendly and helpful when we arrived and even offered to take us to the train station at the end of our stay. Shaking hands seemed too formal – and I had seen your video about hugs – so I took her hand to faire la bise – once by each cheek. She smiled approvingly and said we had learned how French people greet – ‘but …’ she said: ‘in the South, we faire la bise three times, not twice’ – in other words back to the cheek we started. She said that in Paris and other places it is a different number 🙂

    à bientôt 🙂

    • Well done Jerry! Yes, it’s different and even we (French people) never know how many we’re supposed to do. 😉

  • I was dining in a small left bank couscous establishment in Paris, where there was a television right above our table that was playing very LOUD. My students wanted me to ask the owner to turn down the TV set. I explained that I had to be very careful to use the correct verb…”baisser” vs “baiser”….and I was terrified that I would use the wrong one! So instead, I used the opportunity to teach them about circumlocution, saying….”Monsier, svp, la télé est trop bruyante….pouvez-vous faire quelquechose?” And he smilingly obliged!

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