Given that (étant donné que) it's the season of Thanksgiving (or Le Jour de l’Action de Grâce in Canadian French), let’s commemorate the act of giving by exploring the French verb for “to give,” donner. Besides thanks, there is an infinite number of things you can give, so we’ll focus on some specific expressions with donner that are featured in our videos. 

BANNER PLACEHOLDER

Let’s start by giving some thanks to our favorite tour guide, Daniel Benchimol, who likes to close his always informative travel videos with the phrase donner rendez-vous: 

Je vous donne rendez-vous

I'll meet you

très rapidement pour d'autres découvertes.

very soon for some other discoveries.

Caption 45, Voyage dans Paris - Les Secrets de la Bastille

 Play Caption

Daniel is literally “giving you a rendezvous,” and you can accept his gift by watching his latest tour, which will take you around Paris’s beautiful Bastille neighborhood. 

It’s also good to give thanks for the rights (les droits) that we’re granted every day, whether our human rights or the occasional promotional perk: 

Une place de concert achetée

A purchased concert seat

donne droit également à une entrée gratuite au château.

also entitles you to a free entry to the castle.

Captions 27-28, TV Tours - Ouverture du 3ème festival de Chambord

 Play Caption

And let’s not forget about what we can give back to others, even if it’s just a helping hand: 

Je viens là et puis je leur donne un petit coup de main!

I come here and then I give them a bit of a helping hand!

Caption 24, Actus Quartier - Fête de quartier Python-Duvernois

 Play Caption

If you’re dealing with someone stubborn, you might not want to give them anything or get anything from them—you might just want them to give in (se donner): 

Seul face à Beethoven encore et toujours,

Alone in front of Beethoven, as always,

Beethoven qui résiste et qui se donne et s'enfuit.

Beethoven who resists and who gives in and runs away.

Caption 18, Le Journal - Gstaad

 Play Caption

BANNER PLACEHOLDER

As a gift to you for being such great Yabla subscribers, here is a list of some other useful expressions with donner. Think of it as a bit of a donnant donnant (give and take) situation. For even more donner-related expressions, see our previous lesson on the word maldonne.

donner de sa personne - to give a lot of oneself, go out of one’s way

donner à penser que - to suggest, lead to believe

donner faim/soif/chaud/froid - to make hungry/thirsty/hot/cold 

donner sur - to look out onto 

donner dans - to lapse into

se donner à fond - to go all out, give it one’s all 

se donner du mal - to go to a lot of trouble

donner du fil à retordre - to give a hard time, give the runaround

se donner en spectacle - to make a spectacle of oneself 

s'en donner à cœur joie - to enjoy wholeheartedly

In this lesson, we'll take a look at some of the different ways of welcoming people in French, all involving the word bienvenue (welcome).

BANNER PLACEHOLDER

In English, you usually welcome people to a particular place: “welcome to my house,” “welcome to New York,” and so on. In French, however, any number of prepositions can follow bienvenue, depending on their object:

Bonjour et bienvenue sur Yabla.

Hello and welcome to Yabla.

Caption 1, Yabla à Nancy - Le masculin et le féminin

 Play Caption

Bienvenue dans la plus chic des stations alpines, Gstaad.

Welcome to the most fashionable of the Alpine ski resorts, Gstaad.

Caption 3, Le Journal - Gstaad

 Play Caption

Bienvenue au théâtre, mes amis!

Welcome to the theater, my friends!

Caption 18, Il était une fois: l’Homme - 6. Le siècle de Périclès - Part 2

 Play Caption

The choice of preposition specifies the kind of place where you are being welcomed. In the first example, Yabla is a website, and if you are on a website, you are sur un site web. So here you are literally being welcomed “onto” the website. In the second example, you are being welcomed “into” a ski resort, dans une station alpine. And in the third example, you are being welcomed “to” the theater: au théâtre.

Another way to welcome someone in French is with the expression être le bienvenu / la bienvenue / les bienvenus / les bienvenues (to be welcome):

Que les visiteurs soient les bienvenus sous mon toit.

May visitors be welcome under my roof.

Caption 9, Il était une fois: l’Homme - 6. Le siècle de Périclès - Part 3

 Play Caption

Ben, vous êtes les bienvenus à découvrir de visu...

So, everyone is welcome to come in and see with their own eyes...

Caption 38, Galerie "Art Up Déco" - La galerie d'art

 Play Caption

Literally translated, the expression vous êtes les bienvenus means something like, “you are the welcome ones.” 

BANNER PLACEHOLDER

Note that bienvenue used as a greeting (either alone or at the beginning of a sentence) is a feminine noun, short for je vous souhaite la bienvenue (literally, “I wish you welcome”). Therefore, its spelling doesn’t change. On the other hand, the bienvenu/e/s after être le/la/les is an adjective used as a noun that must agree with its subject. So you would write, Vous êtes les bienvenus/bienvenues en France, but not, Bienvenus/Bienvenues en France! The correct form would be: Bienvenue en France! 

You can also put the above expression in the imperative form:

Soyez les bienvenus chez moi.

Welcome to my home.

It is also very common to see bienvenu/bienvenue used to express a wish, as in this sentence:

Vos suggestions seraient les bienvenues. 

Your suggestions would be welcome.

And if you’re in Quebec, you’ll hear bienvenue used by itself to mean “you’re welcome.” So when you say merci (thank you) to a French person, he or she will respond with de rien or je vous en prie. But a French Canadian will answer, Bienvenue!

As you can see, you have a lot of options with this one elementary word. But no matter how you use it, you’ll definitely make people feel welcome!