Phrasebook
S’il vous plaît or s’il te plaît: which French please should you use?
Choose the right French please for one friend, a stranger or a group. Practise short requests, spelling and the te in s’il te plaît.
- A1
- 11 phrases
- 3 situations
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In short
Use s’il te plaît with one person you call tu. Use s’il vous plaît with someone you call vous, or with several people. Both mean “please”.
Yellow the idea to rememberBlue French to learn
s’il te plaîtplease
Focus: one person, using tu
tu + verb … s’il te plaît
Tu peux répéter, s’il te plaît ?
Can you repeat that, please?
s’il vous plaîtplease
Focus: one person using vous, or a group
vous + verb … s’il vous plaît
Vous pouvez répéter, s’il vous plaît ?
Can you repeat that, please?
Inside the familiar formula, the word is te, even though the subject of your question is tu. Learn the whole phrase: s’il te plaît. The spelling used here has an apostrophe after s and a circumflex in plaît.
Ask one friend to slow down
You and Léa use tu.
Ask someone you have just met
Start with bonjour and use vous.
Speak to several friends
A group takes vous, even when everyone is a close friend.
Where does s’il vous plaît go in a sentence?
S’il vous plaît, vous pouvez répéter ?
Excuse me, can you repeat that?
At the beginning, the phrase can also attract someone’s attention.
Attends une seconde, s’il te plaît.
Wait a second, please.
The short instruction uses the singular familiar form.
In a message, SVP stands for s’il vous plaît and STP for s’il te plaît. Say the full phrase aloud. In a short written request to a friend, stp is common; a full phrase fits a more careful message.