Pas Mal: Not Bad and Quite a Bit

The phrase pas mal literally means "not bad," and like its English counterpart, it's often used to express an assessment of something:

La nourriture à ce restaurant n'est pas mal.
The food at that restaurant isn't bad.

C'est pas mal déjà!

That's not bad at all! [or: That's pretty good!]

Caption 21, Actus Quartier - Fête de quartier Python-Duvernois
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But just as often, pas mal is used not as a qualitative assessment, but a quantitative one. Take a look at this example from our video on Paris's Rue des Martyrs:

Y a pas mal de bars dans la rue.

There are quite a few bars on the street.

Caption 42, Adrien - Rue des Martyrs
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Adrien isn't saying that the bars on the street "aren't bad." If he were, he might have said something like, Les bars dans la rue ne sont pas mal. Instead, he uses pas mal to indicate that there are "quite a few" bars on the street. When followed by de (of) plus a noun, pas mal can mean anything along the lines of "quite a few," "quite a bit," or "quite a lot":

C'est quelque chose qui est très important

This is something that has been very important

pour nous depuis pas mal de temps.

to us for quite a bit of time.

Caption 18, Alsace 20 - Grain de Sel: le titre de Maître Restaurateur, c'est quoi?
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When pas mal comes before an adjective, it means "a lot" or "pretty":

Ben c'est sûr que... c'est pas mal plus naturel.

Well, for sure... that's a lot more natural.

Caption 46, Bateau sport 100% électrique - Le Nautique 196 E
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Ce livre est pas mal intéressant.
This book is pretty interesting.

And when referring to a verb, it means "really" or, again, "quite a bit/a lot":

J'essaie de rechercher pas mal le son.

I'm trying to really research the sound [or: I'm trying to research the sound quite a bit].

Caption 12, Phil Cambron - Ses révélations
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Here's an example sentence that contains both senses of pas mal:

Pas mal de nuages mais quand même des éclaircies,

Quite a few clouds but still some sunny spells,

et au niveau des températures, c'est pas mal non plus.

and as far as temperatures go, that's not bad either.

Captions 9-10, Alsace 20 - Météo des Maquilleurs
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But be careful: just because you see the words pas and mal next to each other doesn't necessarily mean you're dealing with the expression pas mal. Namely, when a verb phrase with mal (such as faire mal [to hurt] or le prendre mal [to take it the wrong way]) is negated, the pas mal portion doesn't mean "not bad" or "quite a bit"—it's just part of the negation:

Ça fait pas mal? -Non, non.

It doesn't hurt? -No, no.

Caption 16, Cap 24 - Rasage et Epilation du Visage : Alessandro Di Sarno teste!
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