After Bonjour, French people use a handful of phrases no textbook teaches: Ça va ? Quoi de neuf ? Il fait beau, hein ? — and three magic connectors (du coup, hein, allez) that turn a greeting into a real conversation. The freeze you feel after Bonjour isn't a French problem. It's the gap between textbook French and spoken French. Here are the 10 phrases that fill it.
Why small talk is the hardest part
You've done the hard part. You walked in, you said Bonjour with the right intonation, you remembered to smile.
And then: silence. The French person smiles back. They wait. The dreaded 3-second pause. You panic. Your mind goes blank. You forget every word of French you ever knew. You mumble something about the weather in a way that doesn't even make sense, and you both laugh awkwardly, and you switch to English, and there goes your immersion.
Sound familiar? The problem isn't your French. The problem is that nobody ever taught you the 10 things that come after Bonjour. The connectors, the small questions, the little reactions that turn a greeting into a conversation.
The 10 phrases that come after Bonjour
Here are the exact 10 phrases French people use in everyday small talk, in the order you'd typically use them.
1. "Ça va ?" (casual) or "Comment ça va ?" (neutral) — The "how are you" of French. Everyone asks it, no one expects a real answer. 2. "Quoi de neuf ?" — "What's new?" The follow-up that invites the other person to share. 3. "Il fait beau, hein ?" — Weather as conversation starter. The "hein" at the end is critical.
4. "Tu fais quoi ce weekend ?" — "What are you doing this weekend?" The classic opener for a friend. 5. "Et toi, tu fais quoi dans la vie ?" — "And you, what do you do?" The "et toi" at the start softens the question.
6. "Ah bon ? Dis-moi !" — "Really? Tell me more!" The verbal equivalent of leaning forward. 7. "C'est pas vrai !" — "No way!" Reaction to surprising news.
8. "Ça marche / Ça roule" — "Works for me / Sounds good". Agreement to a plan. 9. "Du coup, ..." — "And so..." The most French connector of the last 20 years. 10. "Allez, à plus !" — "OK, see you!" The "Allez" at the start is incredibly French.
The 3 connectors that change everything
Three tiny words do more work than the rest of the French language combined. Forget the lists of 500 vocabulary words — if you can use these three naturally, you'll sound ten times more French.
"Du coup" (doo koo) — "and so", "which means", "as a result". Introduces a consequence or follow-up. Il pleuvait, du coup on est restés à la maison. You'll hear it 10 times in any 5-minute French conversation. "Hein" (ain) — a verbal tag like English "right?" or "isn't it?" that turns a statement into a question. The French love this word. They use it constantly. "Allez" (ah-lay) — at the start of a goodbye, it's a verbal handshake at the door. Allez, à plus ! Allez, à bientôt ! Allez, bonne journée !
These are not in textbooks. They're learned by living in French. That's why mastering them sets you apart.
The 2-minute drill
Pick 2 of the 10 phrases. Practice them out loud — Echo Bounce style — for 2 minutes. Do this every day for 2 weeks. By day 14, you'll have all 10 phrases that come out naturally, without translating.
Week 1: phrases 1 to 5 (greetings and openers). Week 2: phrases 6 to 10 (reactions and goodbyes). For a fuller list of what French people actually say in everyday conversation, see the guide on French phrases locals actually use.
