The COVID pandemic has forced French people to fundamentally rethink how they interact with each other. They will need to reconsider the way they typically greet and say goodbye to one another with a peck or two on each cheek, a kiss known as la bise.
Should this customary greeting, this deeply ingrained cultural habit of faire la bise be avoided during a pandemic?
In the video below, French Public Health authorities keep telling the inhabitants of the Grand-Est region to please stop kissing, which translates as s’embrasser:
Arrêtez de vous embrasser.
Stop kissing.
Caption 1, RMC - Covid-19: faut-il encore se faire la bise?
Play Caption
Hold it! Does that mean that French people should stop kissing altogether? Not exactly. It simply means skipping the traditional peck or two on each cheek (la bise or s’embrasser sur la joue) every time you greet a friend or an acquaintance. The French health authorities are not specifically referring to romantic kissing.
Still, despite the risk of contamination, many French people are finding it difficult to abandon this tradition as it feels very awkward and unnatural to them, and they just can’t help themselves!
Beaucoup de Français ont un peu de mal
Many French people are having a bit of trouble
à changer les habitudes,
changing their habits,
un peu de mal à oublier la bise.
a bit of trouble forgetting the kiss on the cheek.
Captions 12-14, RMC - Covid-19: faut-il encore se faire la bise?
Play Caption
Cette mère de famille avoue embrasser
This mother admits to kissing
la plupart de ses connaissances.
most of her acquaintances.
Captions 43-44, RMC - Covid-19: faut-il encore se faire la bise?
Play Caption
Back in pre-COVID days, if you wanted to break the ice and exchange bises for the first time, you could just plunge ahead or you could simply ask, On se fait la bise? (Shall we give each other a peck on the cheek?). In a subtle way, asking or granting permission to exchange bises indicates the beginning of a friendship, in partnership with se tutoyer (using tu, the informal form of “you”).
But for now, the habit is hard to break. It’s usually de rigueur and not optional among family members. And it’s up to you to guess or decide how many bises you should exchange. Usually two will suffice, but that can vary.
The pressure to exchange la bise is greater on girls than boys as girls are expected to kiss everyone, regardless of gender. Girls especially feel the social pressure to exchange bises as they worry that they will come across as cold and unfriendly if they don’t kiss their friends and family members.
(Speaking of cold, la bise is also a cold northerly wind that bites your cheeks. We discussed this in a previous lesson.)
As for males, they aren’t expected to kiss everyone, and serrer la main (shaking hands) with male friends or relatives is acceptable.
If a man is feeling very gallant and old-fashioned, he can kiss a lady’s hand: faire un baiser sur la main. There’s even a special word for this: le baisemain (kissing someone’s hand as a mark of respect).
Although not so much used as a formal greeting anymore, le baiser remains a beautiful expression of love. Un baiser often refers to a romantic kiss:
Depuis que tu m'as laissé ce baiser fiévreux
Since you left me that feverish kiss
Caption 9, Charles-Baptiste - Sale type
Play Caption
The verb baiser used to mean “to kiss,” and it was perfectly acceptable to use the term in formal circumstances and otherwise:
Il faut se mettre à genoux et baiser le pied de l'empereur.
We must kneel and kiss the emperor's foot.
C'est la coutume.
It's the custom.
Caption 11, Il était une fois: les Explorateurs - 15. Bruce et les sources du Nil
Play Caption
But beware! Baiser as a verb means something else entirely now! It’s slang for “to have sex.” But don’t worry: un baiser (a kiss) is safe to use in a sentence.
In addition to le baiser (kiss) and la bise (peck on each cheek), you may come across a couple of variations:
Le bisou, or “little kiss,” is warmer and more playful than la bise. The term is often used when talking to children, but also with good friends or lovers. It’s an expression of love and affection and is not typically used as a greeting like la bise:
Et moi, j'ai pas droit à un petit bisou?
And me, don't I get a little kiss?
Caption 49, Le Jour où tout a basculé - Mon histoire d'amour est impossible
Play Caption
Un bécot is a somewhat more intimate kiss, more like a “smooch.” In this video on school regulations regarding public displays of affection, students smooch (se bécotent) in school. You can watch the entire video to discover more slang words for kissing:
Cela dit, le règlement ne prévoit aucune sanction pour les amoureux qui se bécotent à l'école publique.
That said, the regulations do not allow for any sanctions against lovers who kiss at public school.
Caption 31, Le Journal - Baisers interdits dans les couloirs!
Play Caption
So there you have it: multiple ways of greeting and expressing love and affection in French, whether it be la bise, un bisou, un baiser, or un bécot. It may have to be une bise virtuelle à distance (a virtual, socially distanced kiss) or an elbow bump until we can kiss the pandemic goodbye!
The French word jamais usually means “never,” in the negative construction ne… jamais:
On nous dit que les bus ne sont jamais à l'heure.
They tell us that the buses are never on time.
Caption 11, Cap 24 - Les bus sont-ils toujours en retard ?
Play Caption
Technically, jamais only means “never” when it’s attached to a ne (though the ne is sometimes dropped in informal speech). An easy way to remember that the French word for “never” is actually two words is to note that “never” is just another way of saying “not ever,” which is the literal translation of ne jamais. But jamais doesn't always have a negative meaning, and sometimes is better translated as “ever.” In fact, as with the word “ever,” there are plenty of instances in which jamais can be used by itself (without the ne) to have a positive meaning.
Cyril uses jamais in this way two times while showing us some of his impressive rollerblading skills:
Le plus gros tricks [sic] que j'aie jamais fait...
The greatest trick that I ever did...
Caption 7, Cap 24 - Démonstration de roller freestyle
Play Caption
Si jamais on a envie d'aller skater là-bas...
If we ever feel like going to skate over there...
Caption 18, Cap 24 - Démonstration de roller freestyle
Play Caption
Si jamais is a very common expression that usually is not broken up, like “if ever” is (which is why you have si jamais on a envie instead of si on a jamais envie above, but “if we ever feel” instead of “if ever we feel”).
Another common expression is plus que jamais, “more than ever”:
Les oiseaux sont plus que jamais sous haute surveillance.
More than ever, the birds are under high surveillance.
Caption 32, Le Journal - La grippe aviaire
Play Caption
Don’t confuse this with the negative expression ne… plus jamais (never again), which Charles-Baptiste uses extensively (in an inverted form) in his love song “Sale Type” (Dirty Guy):
Plus jamais je ne me couperai les cheveux
Never again will I cut my hair
Depuis que tu as mis tes mains dedans
Since you put your hands in it
Captions 6-7, Charles-Baptiste - Sale type
Play Caption
The opposite of ne… jamais is toujours (always, forever), but sometimes jamais can be used as a synonym for toujours in more formal or poetic contexts (just as “ever” can be a synonym of “always”).
Singer Ina-Ich waxes lyrical with the expression à jamais (forever) in her song “Libre comme l’eau”:
À jamais libre comme le vent
Forever free like the wind
Caption 55, Ina-Ich - Libre comme l'eau
Play Caption
A similar expression meaning “forever” is pour jamais, which is a more formal version of pour toujours. And if you really want to emphasize eternalness, you can use à tout jamais (forever and ever).
To summarize, let’s take the old adage “never say never” and apply it to jamais: jamais sometimes “says never,” sometimes says “ever,” and sometimes says “forever.” But it never, ever says anything else!
Serai, serais, serait, seraient... They all sound the same! Distinguishing these homonymous forms of être (to be) can seem daunting—but have no fear, we've got some examples to help you sort it all out.
Serai is the first person singular (je) future tense form of the verb être—the equivalent of the English "will be." Yabla's friend Charles-Baptiste employs it when he sings:
Oui je serai sale toute ma vie
Yes I will be dirty all my life
Caption 14, Charles-Baptiste - Sale type
Play Caption
Serait is the third person singular (il / elle) present "conditional mood" (sometimes called conditional tense) of être. In English, the conditional mood is tipped off by "would," as you can see in our interview with the band Neimo:
Et dès qu'on a commencé à écrire des chansons,
And as soon as we started writing songs,
on s'est dit ça serait mieux en anglais...
we said to ourselves, it would be better in English...
Caption 22, Neïmo - Interview de Neïmo
Play Caption
Now let's look at an example of the first person (je) conditional mood, which is conjugated as serais (the second person, tu, also shares this spelling):
Si je savais compter J'en serais éhonté
If I knew how to count I would be shameless about it
Captions 32-33, Château Flight featuring Bertrand Burgalat - Les antipodes
Play Caption
Seraient is also conditional mood, but it is the third person plural (ils, elles). We found this example in an article about Germany and the euro:
Les Allemands pensent qu'ils seraient mieux sans l'euro.
The Germans think they would be better off without the euro.
Now is a good time to log in and watch these and other videos, keeping an ear out for these various homophones of être in action!
Spanish
German
Italian
Chinese
English
English 
Deutsch
Español
Français
Italiano
