French Vocabulary
How to Say Cheers in French
Jun
Whenever you’re out having a drink with someone it’s only natural that you may say “cheers” at some point. Even if you don’t drink yourself it’s still good vocabulary to know as you never know when you may hear it in a movie, TV show or even real life.
Whatever your situation is you’ll be happy to hear that there are a handful of ways to say “cheers” in French, all of which are very easy to learn.
using à votre santé to say cheers in french
When you literally translate it à votre santé means “to your health” which is only occasionally used in English. Even if you have never heard this used the idea behind it shouldn’t be too difficult to understand.
Typically situations where you would say “cheers” to someone are informal because you probably know them on a personal level.
However if for whatever reason this isn’t the case then you can use à votre santé (such as if you’re with your boss or someone you just met). You would also use à votre santé if you are saying cheers to multiple people no matter whether the situation is formal or not.
using à ta santé to say cheers in french
If you can understand à votre santé then you can understand à ta santé without a problem. It literally means the exact same thing except that it’s only used for informal situations with people that you already know well (friends, family, etc..).
Remember though that even if you are in an informal situation with people that you know well you would still use à votre santé if you are speaking to more than one person.
Using à la votre to say cheers in french
We’ve already gone over that à votre santé means “to your health” with you translate it literally. À la votre is like saying “to yours” because the word santé (health) is already implied. There isn’t much more to say about this one. Just think of it as a variation of à votre santé.
Using à la tienne to say cheers in french
If you can understand à la votre then à la tienne won’t be an issue for you. It’s just the informal version of à la votre which again implies that you’re referring to santé.
Using santé to say cheers in French
Santé (translated as health) is another easy way to say “cheers” to someone. It’s kind of funny because we’ve already gone over that à la votre and à la tienne imply the word santé without actually saying it. Well when you just say santé the words à votre or à ta are what are being implied.
The great thing about saying santé is that you can say it around any number of people, you don’t have to worry about whether you should say à votre santé or à ta santé.
Using tchin tchin to say cheers in French
This one is a little silly as it doesn’t even appear to be in French and technically it isn’t. Tchin tchin is originally from China and was brought to the French army years back. The expression is still used to this day. The only thing to remember with this one is that you only would want to use it in informal situations with people you know well.
Using trinquer to make a toast
Trinquer is not something that you say when making toast, but rather the verb “to toast” itself. You would use it when you want to initiate a toast with someone else. You’ll see that the best translation for trinquer isn’t always simply “to toast”, but if you just think of the contexts in which the below sentences would be used you should have no problem understanding them. Let’s look at a couple of example sentences where you may want to use trinquer.
Trinquons à la santé de Michel – Let’s toast for Michel’s health
Je veux bien trinquer à notre avenir – I want to drink (toast) to our future
On trinque à de nouveaux voisins – Here’s to new neighbors
As you can see learning how to say “cheers” in French is actually pretty easy. If you just learn a couple of these then you’ll be in good shape whenever you are in a situation where a cheers may be warranted.
