Dr Suzanne Kobeisse
I want to tell you about something I witnessed years ago, shortly after arriving in the UK. A French colleague of mine, visiting for the first time, came back from a morning in town looking genuinely puzzled. "People here," she said, "they just walk up and start talking to you. No hello, nothing. It is very strange."
From the other direction, I have heard British visitors to France say almost exactly the same thing, but with a different edge: "The French are so cold. We went into a patisserie and the woman barely looked at us."
Both of these experiences come from the same source: two countries with different, deeply held rules about how you begin an interaction with a stranger. And in France, that rule is built around one word.
The rule itself
In France, you greet before you ask. Always. Without exception.
When you walk into a shop, you say bonjour as you enter, before you have touched anything, before you have looked at the prices, before you have decided whether you even want to buy anything. The shopkeeper will say bonjour back. This is not a warm personal exchange between people who know each other. It is a social acknowledgement: I see you, you see me, we are now in a shared space together.
When a waiter approaches your table, you say bonjour, madame or bonjour, monsieur before you ask for anything. When you ring a shop or an office, you say bonjour before you give your name or state your reason for calling. When a doctor's receptionist looks up at you, bonjour first, your appointment time second.
This is not optional. It is structural. It is as embedded in French social conduct as please and thank you are in English, but it works slightly differently: it is a gatekeeper. The quality of everything that follows is shaped by whether you observed it or skipped it.
What happens when you skip it
Nothing dramatic, usually. No one will refuse to serve you. No one will tell you off. But the interaction will be subtly different. A shade cooler. The person you are speaking to will answer your question, but they will not go out of their way to help you. You have, without knowing it, started the exchange on the wrong footing.
In France, walking up to someone and immediately asking for something, without greeting them first, is a small but unmistakeable breach of social contract. It treats the person as a function rather than a person.
This is why tourists sometimes describe French service as cold or unhelpful. They are not entirely wrong about the quality of the interaction they experienced, but they have usually diagnosed it incorrectly. The coldness was not arbitrary. It was a response.
I grew up with this as an instinct rather than a rule, because in Lebanon, where French is woven into the culture in a particular way, these courtesies are just as present. You greet. You acknowledge. You recognise the person in front of you as a person before you ask them for anything. It would not occur to me to do otherwise. But I understand completely why it does not come naturally if it was never explained to you.
The extension: bonsoir and beyond
Bonjour (good day) shifts to bonsoir (good evening) in the late afternoon or evening, roughly from around 6pm onwards, though this is flexible and context-dependent. Using bonjour in the evening is not offensive; bonsoir is simply the more natural choice.
When you leave a place, you say au revoir (goodbye) or, if you are on warmer terms, bonne journee (have a good day) or bonne soiree (have a good evening). If someone says one of these to you as you leave, the expected response is merci, vous aussi (thank you, you too). It is a tiny exchange that takes two seconds and leaves both parties feeling that the interaction ended properly.
In shops, markets, and restaurants across France, this closing ritual is almost universal. Missing it is less serious than missing the opening bonjour, but noticing it and participating makes you seem not just polite but genuinely thoughtful.
Why this matters for language learners
When I am teaching French, particularly to students who will be using it for travel, business, or everyday interactions with French speakers, I put this rule near the front of every early conversation. Not because it is the most linguistically complex thing we cover. It is not. But because it is the thing most likely to change how French people respond to you.
Speaking imperfect French with correct social instincts will get you much further than speaking perfect French with the wrong social instincts. A French person who hears you begin with a sincere, clearly pronounced bonjour will already be more inclined to be patient, more willing to slow down, more ready to meet you where you are. You have shown that you understand something real about the culture, not just the grammar.
That is the deeper point, I suppose. Language is not just words. It is the set of social understandings that surround the words. Bonjour is five letters, two syllables. What it carries is considerably more than that.