When a French person leaves, then can simply say “Au revoir”… Or it might be more elaborate, like:
Allez, je file ! Salut Marie, ciao Bruno. Oh attends, tu feras la bise à Martin de ma part, hein. Ouais ouais. Bon, faut qu’j’y aille. Allez, bonne soirée hein ! Bisous, à bientôt. On se capte vite. Et bon courage pour ton projet surtout !
…Ah oui et j’te r’dis pour dimanche, j’dois voir avec Guillaume. Bon, allez, cette fois je m’en vais pour de vrai. À plus !
(= Alright, I’m off! Bye Marie, ciao Bruno. Oh wait, give Martin a kiss for me, yeah? Yeah yeah. Okay, I really gotta go. Right, have a good evening! Hugs, see you soon. Let’s catch up soon. And good luck with your project, especially! …Oh and I’ll get back to you about Sunday, I need to check with Guillaume. Okay, alright, this time I’m leaving for real. Later!)
Yeah, sometimes saying goodbye in French is a whole thing. This is real, spoken French. Not always something you might find in lessons or textbooks!
Let’s see a few key sentences you need to say goodbye in French. So you’ll never freeze at the door of a shop, or the end of a dinner, ever again.
C’est parti.
1) “Au revoir” – the basic toolkits you learned in school
Au revoir (sounds like “au r’voir”) – the safe, universal way to say goodbye. You can use it when leaving shops, appointments, friends… It’s OK if you only know this one, but you can do better.
Salut = “bye,” more casual. For friends and family, not the waiter at the restaurant. (We also use it to say “Hi!”)
Well-wishes:
- Bonne journée = Have a good day!
- Bon après-midi. = Have a good afternoon!
- Bonne soirée. = Have a good evening!, etc.
You can use them with “Au revoir” too:
Bonne soirée, au revoir ! = Have a good evening, goodbye!
Au revoir, et bon week-end ! = Goodbye, and enjoy the weekend!
Now, there are also a couple of mistakes that beginners tend to make. It’s OK to make mistakes! They’re small things, but they’re easy to avoid and you’ll sound much more natural. I’m talking mainly about:
- Adieu → Very formal and terminal “goodbye.” Only when leaving forever, or when someone’s dying – never in everyday life.
- Bonne nuit ! → “Goodnight, sleep well.” For people who sleep in the same house.
- Bonsoir ! → It’s “Bonjour” for the evening or night. We don’t really use it anymore to say goodbye.
Again – if you just want to say goodbye to someone during the night, simply use “Bonne soirée.”
The extra mile:
Filer à l’anglaise = “leaving the English way” = leaving without saying goodbye
2) “À plus tard !” – the “see you soon” family
“Au revoir” actually means “To the next time we see each other.”
There’s a slew of similar French goodbyes that look forward to the future:
- À bientôt. (= see you soon)
- À tout à l’heure. (= see you at some other time in this same day)
- À plus tard. (= see you later – also during the same day)
Sometimes you can be more specific:
- À demain (= see you tomorrow)
- À la semaine prochaine (= see you next week), etc.
You might hear more informal versions, such as:
- À la prochaine. (= See you next time, whenever that is)
- À toute ! (short for “à tout à l’heure”)
- À plus (short for “à plus tard” – here we can hear the “s” sound at the end)
3) “Bisous” – kisses and affection
For friends and family:
- Bisous ! (= Kisses!)
- Gros bisous ! (= Big kisses!)
- Grosses bises ! (= Big kisses, less informal)
- Je t’embrasse ! (= I send kisses, I hug you)
One warning: the verb baiser used to mean “to kiss”… but in modern French, it now always means something much more explicit. So please, only use embrasser or faire la bise, for something like “Tu lui feras la bise de ma part.” (= You’ll send him my warm regards.) You’ve been warned!
La bise :
With friends and family, we use “la bise” (“the kiss”) in person to say hello and goodbye. It’s not a real kiss – you’re only basically kissing the air above the other person’s ear (left side, then right side).
It can take a long time to do that to everyone in a group, though. Simply wave goodbye to everyone at once and say “Allez, bisous à tous !”
4) “Allez, je file !” – a drawn-out goodbye
Other goodbyes that you can find in real life (and in the intro for this lesson) :
- Allez, je file ! (= OK, I’m leaving!) → “Je file” is slang for “I have to leave.” But “Allez” is more interesting here; it basically means “OK, that was good, but it’s time to go.” You can add it before any goodbye we’ve seen so far, like “Allez, au revoir” to “Allez, bisous à tous !”.
- Bon, faut que j’y aille. = OK, well, I have to go (casual grammar). We also say “Je dois y aller.”
- On se capte vite. = We’ll connect soon, we’ll find a way to meet again quickly. This is modern informal French, using words from technology. And like “à bientôt”, it softens your goodbye, projecting your friendship forward.
- Bon courage surtout ! = in French, we can cheer for someone with Bonne chance ! (= good luck) when things are up to chance, or Bon courage ! (literally, “Good courage, be brave”) – especially when life is going to get difficult.
5) Quick recap
Can you pronounce them out loud while reading this?
- Au revoir ! – the basics.
- Allez, bonne journée, au revoir ! – when leaving a shop
- Bonne soirée ! – for saying goodbye at night
- À plus ! – see you later, with the s sound, for friends and family.
- Gros bisous ! – Big kisses, an affectionate close
- Bon, allez, je file ! À bientôt ! – OK, got to go, see you soon!
Great! With these in your pocket, you’ll never freeze again at the door of a shop or at the end of a dinner with French friends.
Now, in the comments, tell me your favorite French goodbye. Or your worst one. The time you said au revoir to someone and immediately knew it landed wrong!
À très vite !