Imagine that your French friend Marie just picked you up at the airport in Paris and hosted you in her lovely home for 3 days.
You are grateful and would like to thank her so you say merci when you leave and give her a box full of delicacies from your hometown.
Then you wonder: isn’t’t there a better way to say thank you in French? Merci did feel a bit…short.
While merci is a safe choice in almost all situations and will rarely offend people, it’s not always the best way to thank people in French.
Here are 19 other ways to say thank you in French!
Merci: the classical thank you
Merci is the most common way to say thank you or thanks in French.
You can use it whether you’re talking to your best friend, a seller, a waiter or your boss without any risk of offending anyone.
However, it may be considered a bit cold and short depending on the context.
That’s why it’s often better to expand on the basic merci and use one these common variations:
- Merci beaucoup (thank you very much)
- Merci d’avance (thank you in advance)
- Non merci (no thank you)
- Merci à tous (thank you all)
Sometimes you may also hear these alternative ways of saying thank you in French:
- Merci bien (thanks a lot)
- Merci infiniment (thank you a million)
- Merci mille fois (thank you a thousand times)
- Un grand merci à (a big thank you to…)
Be aware that merci bien can be perceived as sarcastic depending on the context so I would recommend you to use merci beaucoup instead.
Merci bien, mais j’ai pas que ça à faire !
Thanks a lot, but I have better things to do!
If you want to sound more formal, simply add monsieur or madame after merci.
You could also use mademoiselle but I wouldn’t recommend you to do so because more and more people consider mademoiselle to be sexist since there is a word for unmarried women but not for unmarried men.
- Merci Monsieur (thank you Sir)
- Merci Madame (thank you Mrs)
If you want to thank a person for something specific, add pour (for) after merci:
- Merci beaucoup pour (thank you very much for…)
- Merci pour votre/ton aide (thank you (formal/informal) for your help)
je vous remercie: the formal thank you
When you want to thank a group of person or highlight the person you’re saying thank you to, you can use one of the following sentences:
- Je vous remercie (formal I thank you)
- Je te remercie (informal I thank you)
These two sentences are generally considered more formal than a simple merci.
Like with merci, you can also use variations of je vous remercie such as:
- Je vous remercie du fond du coeur (I thank you from the bottom of my heart)
- Je vous remercie par avance (I thank you in advance)
- Je vous remercie de votre attention (I thank you for your attention)
- Je vous remercie pour… (I thank you for…)
Just remember that these 4 ways to say thank you in French are rather formal and mostly used in letters.
Using them in everyday situations or in informal emails or Facebook conversations would be strange.
3 other ways to say thank you in French
C’est vraiment gentil de votre part
If someone just offered you a gift or did something nice, you can thank them by saying c’est vraiment gentil de votre part (it’s really kind of you).
As always in French, the votre version is formal while the ta version is informal. That’s because there are two ways to say you in French.
Avec tous mes / nos remerciements
Literally “with all my/our thanks”, avec tous mes/nos remerciements is a good choice when writing a formal letter or email or when you’re writing to a group of people you don’t know well.
Remerciez-le / -la de ma part
If you want to ask someone to thank someone else for you, you can use Remerciez-le /la de ma part (thank him/her for me).
How to answer thank you in French
The most common way to say you’re welcome in French is de rien but there are many alternatives such as:
You can discover other ways to say you are welcome in French in this article.
And you, what’s your favorite way of saying “thank you” in French?