Living abroad in a country where French is the official language?

If you’re about to meet someone new, there are some essential phrases that can really help you make new friends and build a rapport.

It’s as simple as starting off by knowing how to say “nice to meet you” in French.

In this guide, you’ll learn all the important ways to courteously say “nice to meet you” in French.

So, to help you make a good first impression when you’re introduced to someone new, take a look at the content below.

There are four main ways to say “nice to meet you” in French.

These four main ways are:

The table just below contains a brief explanation of the contexts in which these are used.

Formal and informal contexts, including when you meet a colleague in a relaxed workplace

Formal contexts, where enchanté(e) sounds too relaxed—(e.g., when meeting your boss)

Formal contexts, where you’re meeting someone important and well-known

Now let’s take a closer look at the four ways how to say “nice to meet you” in French.

Here are the in-depth explanations to the contexts and grammar used for the phrases in the table above.

In French, we use enchanté or enchantée when we want to say “nice to meet you”.

Now, you might think this word might be a cognate for the English word “enchanted”, and to some extent there are some similarities as enchanté can mean “enchanted” in some situations.

But if you’re meeting someone new in France, use enchanté or enchantée to express joy at meeting someone for the first time.

If you’re a man, you should use the masculine version of this adjective, which is enchanté to show that you’re pleased to meet someone.

If you’re a woman, you should use the feminine version, which is enchantée.

It’s acceptable in formal and informal contexts.

But if you want to know how to say “nice to meet you” in French in other ways, you will see that there are other versions of this French greeting that you can use to show how happy you are to meet someone.

This phrase c’était un plaisir de… literally translates to English as “it was a pleasure to…” And what you might notice is that it’s not a complete phrase.

Guess what this means?

It means you get to complete it with the phrase of your choice!

Now, there are a few options, including formal and informal modes of address.

If you want to say “it was a pleasure to speak with you” you would say c’était un plaisir de parler avec vous, or c’était un plaisir de parler avec toi.

The only difference between these two examples is the mode of address.

In the first example, we can tell the speaker is addressing someone formally—like a stranger or a work colleague (who might be someone who they respect).

In the second example, we can tell that the speaker is addressing someone informally.

We can notice this because vous is the pronoun used in the first sentence, whereas toi is the pronoun used in the second.

What’s also important to recognise is that c’était un plaisir de… is a phrase in the past tense.

We can tell that it means “it was a pleasure to…” because the verb était is the French verb être in the past tense.

For this reason, we reserve this phrase until the end of the meeting to express that the past action of meeting someone was great.

If you want to know how to say “nice to speak to you” slightly differently, you could even say c’était bien agréable de pouvoir vous parler.

If you find yourself in a formal circumstance where you’re meeting your boss, or your boss’ boss, or the CEO of a company, this calls for a formal phrase to say that you’re pleased to meet them.

Ravi(e) de faire votre connaissance is one of those phrases that is perfect for scenarios like this.

It means “nice to meet you” in French.

Now, there’s another way to say it, which is ravi(e) de vous rencontrer.

It means the same thing and can be used in the same contexts as ravi(e) de faire votre connaissance.

Just like with enchanté/enchantée, remember that ravi de faire votre connaissance is used by male speakers when you want to say “nice to meet you”, and ravie de faire votre connaissance is used by female speakers.

One additional point to keep in mind. Remember that awkwardness mentioned in the opening paragraph?

In situations like these, where you’re meeting the CEO of a company you should always try to avoid informal registers in French speaking countries.

This means you should avoid greeting someone with the word coucou or salut if they’re your boss or CEO.

The final way to say “nice to meet you” in French is to say on m’a tellement parlé de vous. Technically, though this one doesn’t exactly mean “nice to meet you”.

The phrase translates to English as “I heard a lot about you” or “I heard very much about you”.

You would use this phrase to express admiration and respect when you’re meeting someone who you’ve heard positive things about.

Let’s go back to our example of the CEO.

If you’re meeting the CEO of your company for the first time and they have made significant strides in the industry you work in, when you shake their hand you can say on m’a tellement parlé de vous.

You’ll notice that here, the vous pronoun is used.

This shows that you’re speaking in an informal situation to someone who you respect or someone who is higher up in the company than you are.

You’ll also notice that here, the past tense of the verb parler is used.

So, when you’re using this phrase to say “nice to meet you” in French, this indicates that good things have already been said about the person you’re meeting.

There are a few other ways to say “nice to meet you” in French.

Two examples of alternative phrases that you can use include:

You might want to use the phrase heureux/heureuse de te rencontrer in informal situations.

This uses the adjective heureux, which means “happy” in English. In other words, you can show that you’re “happy” to meet someone using this phrase.

Note the informal te in this phrase.

This shows that you should use it in informal circumstances — like when you’re meeting a friend of a friend, or the partner of a friend.

If you’re wondering what the difference is between heureux and heureuse, in the context of saying “nice to meet you” in French, the word heureux is used by male speakers when they want to express that they’re pleased to meet someone.

The word heureuse is used by female speakers for the same reason.

Use the phrase ca m’a fait plaisir de discuter avec vous in contexts where you want to say “nice to speak to you you” in French, in formal situations as the phrase means “it was a pleasure to speak with you”.

Again, you will notice the use of the formal pronoun vous.

This should act as another reminder that this phrase should be used in formal circumstances, so save this particular phrase for a formal scenario.

Aim to make the best first impression by learning how to say “nice to meet you” in French.

Try to reserve the formal expressions for formal situations and the informal ones for people that you consider friends, or friends of friends.

Start expressing your joy when you meet someone new and tell them it was nice to meet them in French.

Make sure to check out our guide on introducing yourself in French next.

Have you heard of any other ways to say “nice to meet you” in the French language?

Let us know what they are in the comments section just below!

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