How to Say Nice to Meet You in French

Meeting new people is not only a quintessential part of not only learning a language, but also of just life itself. It’s only natural to assume that as you get more confident in your French-speaking abilities you’ll meet more and more French speakers and encounter more opportunities where you’ll want to say “say nice to meet you”. After reading through this guide you should have a good idea of all the different ways to say “nice to meet you” to someone in French.

Enchanté(e) is definitely the most common way to say “nice to meet you” in French and probably the one that you will use the most. It’s not too formal nor is it too informal which makes it a great expression for beginners to learn. 

The word enchanté(e) kind of looks like the English word “enchanted” as in “enchanted to meet you”. This of course sounds very whimsical and a little silly to English ears, however if it helps you to remember it then by all means think of it like that.

However, keep in mind that in French enchanté(e) is perfectly normal and not silly (or magical) at all.

 

Enchanté can be used in all sorts of situations, however ravi de faire votre connaissance should really be kept to formal ones. The best translation for this phrase would be “pleased to make your acquaintance” which is barely ever used in English. In French however ravi de faire votre connaissance is much more common.

As you may or may not already know, the word votre is the formal version of the word “your” so you only want to use this phrase in situations where you should show some form of respect. Ravi de faire votre connaissance is also what you would use when speaking to multiple people regardless of the formality of the situation. 

If you’re with someone around your age (or just simply in a more informal situation) you can say ravi de faire ta connaissance (ta is the informal version of the word “your”). However, despite that this is more informal it’s still formal as far as informal things go. It’s not considered slang by any means.

 

Ravi de vous rencontrer should be an easy one for you to remember because out of all the phrases in this article this one translates the closest (literally speaking) to “pleased to meet you”.

Just like how votre in the phrase ravi de faire votre connaissance is the formal version of “your”, vous is the formal version of “you”. If you are in a situation that doesn’t require being formal you can say ravi de te rencontrer with te being the informal version of “you” in this instance.

If you couldn’t tell already this one is very similar to ravi de vous rencontrer except that instead of it meaning “nice to meet you” it translates better to “it was a pleasure to meet you”.

You can also say c’était un plaisir de te rencontrer if you’re in a more informal situation.

 

At this point you should be able to guess what this one means as it’s really just a combination of some of the other phrases that we’ve already gone over. Literally translated as “it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance” it’s probably better thought of as just “it was a pleasure meeting you”.

C’était un plaisir de faire ta connaissance can also be used if the situation calls for something less formal, but yet you still want to be polite.

 

The above phrases will get you as far as you need to go when wanting to say “nice to meet you” in French. However there are other ways that you can express this same feeling. Some can be used on their own whereas some can be used together with some of the above sentences. They don’t all have exact translations in English, but overall they still shouldn’t be that hard to understand with just a little bit of effort.

When you meet someone for the first time knowing how to say nice to meet you is both important and courteous. With all the above phrases now at your disposal you should be prepared no matter who you meet or in what situation you meet them.

To learn more French vocabulary head on over to the vocabulary page and find something for you.