The French expression "Tu as du bol" explained

Get prepared to learn everything you want to know about the basic French idiom “Tu as du bol”.

To be more specific, it includes a complete guide of what it is and how to use it in a conversation with an audio example. Not to mention the useful things we sprinkled like dialogue example, synonyms, slow pronunciation audio and more!

Oh and… you will find more idioms guides like this one on this page plus the list of all our French words pages on this page. Happy learning!

Table of Contents

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French to English

How to pronounce it?

Slow pronunciation

Normal pronunciation

What does it mean exactly?

Definition

It literally means:

  • Tu as → You have
  • du bol → some bowl

Why would it be a sign of luck to have some bowl?

Well, because “bol” means “bowl” in modern French, but back in time it used to also mean “ass“. And like in many Latin languages, the ass is associated with luck, so “To have some bowl (ass)” means “To be lucky“.

Nowadays, we don’t associate the word “bol” with ass anymore, so it’s not that vulgar, but it’s still informal.

How to use it

This is informal, so try to avoid using it at work or in any formal situation, use instead “Tu es chanceux” (You are lucky) or even more formal “Vous êtes chanceux“.

Let’s imagine the context allows you to say such things and you are talking with someone telling you an anecdote where he/she got super lucky. Then you can say: “Tu as vraiment du bol !” (You are really lucky!) or simply “Tu as du bol !” (You are lucky)

Fun facts

Absolutely everything said above works equally for the expression: “Tu as du pot“. The only difference is that nowadays “pot” means “jar” instead of “bowl“.

Synonyms

Everyday life dialogue example with audio

Audio dialogue from French people

Dialogue audio

Dialogue text

” J’ai gagné au loto ! “
” I won the lottery! “
” Mais non ? Tu as du bol ! “
” No way? You have some bowl!* “
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