Transcript of the video

Never say je veux in French when addressing someone.

Hello everyone, hope you're well.

Today I'm back with another French video.

If you are new to the channel, I am Elisabeth.

On this channel, I offer you videos to learn the real French spoken every day by French speakers, and I also offer you the chance to learn French in a way that's a little more fun than the French you can learn from books.

You may already know this, but in France, politeness is something very important.

Always say thank you, please, good morning, have a nice day.

This is really important in France.

People can quickly take offense if you're not very polite.

Whether you're in a shop, a restaurant, a cafe or at work with friends, people can quickly take offense if you're not very polite to them.

Forms of politeness, formulas of politeness.

So it's very important in France to respect certain rules.

When you learn a language in general, you start by learning the present tense conjugation.

It's the first thing you do when learning a language, because it's the conjugation you're going to use most frequently, especially in French, where conjugation is really very complex for people learning French for students.

However, for some verbs, it's very important never to use them in the present tense.

This is the case of the verb to want, which we'll look at here.

Never say je veux in French when addressing someone.

On the contrary, you have to say I would like to.

It's the conditional of the verb I want in the first person singular.

I would like instead of I want. Indeed, je veux (I want) gives the impression that you're giving someone an order, and therefore that you're being a little aggressive: you're ordering: je veux (I want).

Whereas if you say I'd like to, it's a much more polite, much gentler way of speaking.

It gives the impression that you want something, that it's a wish.

The person you are talking to has more choice.

And by the way, I don't know if you agree with me, but in general, when we ask someone nicely for something, they're more likely to be nice to us in return.

When you are in a café, for example, don't say I want a Coke to the waiter. But say I'd like a Coke.

In a shoe store, if you want to try on shoes, don't say I want to try on this model in size 40.

Say rather I would like to try this model of shoes in size 40.

In a meeting with colleagues, in class or if you're visiting a museum with a French-speaking guide, for example, say, je voudrais poser une question (I'd like to ask a question) and above all, don't say je veux poser une question (I want to ask a question).

If, for example, you're on the street and the person in front of you is a little slow, and you want to ask them to move over, say, excuse me, I'd like to pass, not excuse me, I want to pass.

If there's more than one of you, it's all the same: use the conditional rather than the present tense.

If you walk into a restaurant. Say, we'd like a table for six for dinner.

Rather than saying we want a table for six for dinner, it's more polite to say we'd like to.

We can say we'd like a table for six for dinner, that's okay too, and in spoken language, we generally use the "on" form with the third-person singular conjugation more than the "nous" form, which is really very formal when talking about a group of people.

That's it for today.

I hope you've enjoyed this video and remembered that you should never say to a French person je veux, but rather je voudrais.

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See you soon.