How to compliment your French host about the dinner

Imagine this:

You just finished a French dinner. It’s not even Christmas or Easter with never-ending dishes. Just a normal dinner with French friends, on a Friday night. You’re probably full. And it was delicious. How do you compliment the cook, in French? How do you ask for more? How do you say in French « I’m full » without making THE classic expat mistake?

This is what you’ll discover in this episode of Comme une Française TV.

Click to watch « How to compliment your French host about the dinner »:




Et toi ?
How do you compliment your hosts in French after a great dinner?

Did you know these expressions? Which one will you use at your next dinner?

Share your story so we can discuss in the comments area below the video.

A la prochaine !

Géraldine

Join the conversation!

  • No true Anglo Saxon would ever dream of saying ‘I am elegantly sufficed thank-you’!!! Even King Arthur would have thought twice before uttering anything so obscure!

  • I have not found a good equivalent to ‘I am elegantly sufficed, thank you’ . UK English, and one of my favourite expressions as it conveys a compliment to the host for both quality and generosity of their hospitality. How would you say it without it coming across OTT? Generally I am still too Anglo Saxon to be comfortable saying superb every five words, so have a hard time with compliments – be it giving or receiving them 🙂 It seems to me that effusive compliments is de rigeur, but paradoxically you are seen as overly polite when you answer ‘avec/mon plaisir’ after you have been thanked for a small service. Am I reading that right?

  • They told me “je suis rassasie” or “je me regale”(with accent, which is missing on my keyboard!) works also.

    • Bonjour Father Utoy,

      Oui, tout à fait !
      “Je suis rassasié” et “Je me suis régalé” sont parfaits aussi.

  • Salut Géraldine et merci beaucoup pour tout les vidéo et tes conseil qui sont tous bien pratique 🙂
    I remember at the the begining of my life in france, I uses to say to my hostes: j’aime bien, c’est très special, en fait I wanted to say that it’s so “special” and delicious and i used this word as a compliment to every body and every thing just like in English and so it tooks time until i realized that “special” is not at all a compliment in french 😀

    • Bonjour Mahsa,
      Ahah, yes absolutely! It’s great you figured it out at last!
      Thanks for sharing this story.

  • Merci pour le video! Mais quelque fois je dis “Non merci, j’ai faim non plus”. Or a variation of that I can’t remember at the moment. Is this correct?

  • Great tips and very helpful when I recently joined a group of 14 French for lunch and offered more. As I made my comments, I thought, thank you Geraldine!

  • I have learned that if you are ‘full’ and your host offers you more food, it is polite to say, ‘non merci; j’ai bien mangé.’ Est-ce correct?

    • Hi Dorothy,

      Yes, absolutely. You can say “Non merci; j’ai bien mangé” or “Non merci; j’ai assez mangé”.
      Excellent!

  • Bonjour Geraldine & merci pour la leçon!

    One mistake I have made is to say “je suis fini” when somebody has asked if I wanted more at a restaurant. My server laughed (nicely) and explained that this statement means “I am dead.” I am learning that sometimes direct translations from what one would say in English lead to funny mistakes in French 🙂

    • Hi Martha,
      Thanks for sharing your experience with the community!
      Yes, this is a funny mistake. 🙂

    • Hi thanks for this video. in the past I have used this phrase: c’était délicieux, mais pas plus merci, j’ai eu beaucoup . As it was a phrase that in could translate. Would it of been ok or could I of caused offence?

      • Hi Donna,
        This is not offensive at all, it’s just the grammar of “j’ai eu beaucoup” is not right. 🙂
        “C’était délicieux. Mais ça ira merci. (slightly more elegant than “mais pas plus merci”) J’ai déjà bien mangé.”

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