French word of the week: vous

Welcome back to our word of the week blog! If you’ve been learning French for a while, you might have already encountered the word vous.

For the correct pronunciation, listen to the audio clip below:

For this first time in this series, we’re looking at a pronoun. The translation of vous into English is very simple, it means you. However, the social context surrounding the use of the word in both spoken and written French can be quite hard to grasp, as it’s not something with an equivalent in English. Vous can be used to address people in two different ways:

1. When you’re addressing more than one person. In other words, a plural, collective ‘you’.
2. When you’re talking to someone who you don’t know well, who is older than you, or in a position of authority. In other words, a formal, singular ‘you’.

We already mentioned that vous is a pronoun, but if you need more information on this, we recommend reading the articles in our Easy Learning French Grammar section on pronouns. More specifically for the formal and plural contexts, you might find it helpful to read the page about when to use tu and when to use vous.

Instead of getting into too many details on grammar, it’s more important to see some common, everyday examples of how and where you might hear vous:

« Je te présente mes parents. » « Enchanté ! Comment allez-vous ?»  “These are my parents.” “Nice to meet you! How are you?” (this situation is both plural and formal, so either way you’d use vous)

Je vous aime tous. I love you all.

Est-ce que vous cuisinez ensemble tous les jours chez vous ? Do you cook together every day at your house?

S’il vous plaît… / S’il te plaît Please… (formal or plural / informal, singular)

Vous êtes les nouvelles élèves de notre classe. You are the new students in our class.

vous-même ; vous-mêmes yourself; yourselves

un rendez-vous an appointment; a date (we use the word ‘rendezvous’ in English too)

C’est à vous de décider si vous nous rejoindrez ce soir. It’s up to you to decide if you will join us tonight.

Just as a useful aside, there is a verb specifically for the concept of addressing someone using the vous form. This verb is vouvoyer. You can check out the definition page for vouvoyer in our French dictionary, but some examples might include:

Penses-tu qu’on doit vouvoyer la nouvelle prof ? Do you think that we need to address the new teacher with the ‘vous’ form?

Je vouvoie toujours mes grands-parents mais je tutoie mon oncle. I always address my grandparents with the ‘vous’ form, but I address my uncle with the ‘tu’ form.

It can be hard to understand the idea of formal, casual, singular and plural ways of addressing someone, but we’re sure that you will get used to it! Join us for another word next week.

Written by Holly Tarbet, freelance copywriter and editor.

All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.