French Grammar Explained /
How are you? - Ça va ?
Welcome to your first ever concept!
What's that?
This is where I will be teaching you all you need to know in order to master the French language.
Like the grammar?
Indeed. But we'll also see concepts and useful sentences.
Cool. What are we learning today?
One of the most important things: how to ask and answer how are you?
To talk about how one is "doing", both English and French make use of the concept of "going", or aller in French:
English | français |
|---|---|
How's it going? It's going well.
It's not going so well. | Ça va ?
Ça va.
Ça ne va pas très bien. |
Ça va ?
Ça va très bien merci. Et toi, ça va ?
Uh... oui.
Perfect! Remember that you can always answer the question ça va ? with ça va. It might seem weird to you right now but it's one of the most commonly used phrases in France.
That said, English also makes use of the verb to do to describe one's personal state of being (when the subject it is not used like in the examples above).
In these cases, French still uses the verb aller:
English | français |
|---|---|
How are you doing? How are you doing?
I'm doing well.
I'm doing well. | Comment vas-tu ? (informal) Comment allez-vous ? (formal)
Je vais bien.
Ça va. |