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Everything about the French sentence "Bonnes vacances"

Are you ready to find out all the things you ever wanted to know about the basic sentence “Bonnes vacances”?

This include a detailed explanation of what it is and how to use it in a dialogue with an audio example. And that’s not all, we also added super useful stuff like slow pronunciation audio, synonym, dialogue example and more!

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Translation in English

Pronunciation guide

Slow pronunciation

Normal pronunciation

What does bonnes vacances mean?

Definition

“Bonnes vacances” is the common way to say “Happy holidays” in French.

It literally means “Good holidays” and is the short version of “Passez de bonnes vacances” (Have a good holiday)

How to use

When you want to wish someone nice holidays, you can say: “Bonnes vacances !” or “Passe de bonnes vacances !“

If you want to be more formal or if you are wishing this to several people, use instead: “Passez de bonnes vacances !“

And if you want to wish more globally “Have fun / Enjoy” then you can use “Profite bien” or “Amuse-toi bien.“

Synonyms and similarities

Passe de bonnes vacances → Have a good holiday
Passez de bonnes vacances → Have a good holiday (Formal and/or Plural)
Profite bien → Enjoy
Amuse-toi bien → Have fun

Example in a story with slow French audio

Now, let’s see a complete example of this phrase in a story with slow French audio and the English translation below.

Les vacances

Holidays

___

En France, le ministère de l’éducation fixe les dates des vacances scolaires.

In France, the Ministry of Education sets the dates for school vacation.

Et à partir de début Juillet, c’est les vacances d’été.

And from the beginning of July, it’s the summer holidays.

Elles se terminent début Septembre.

They end in the beginning of September.

Les vacances sont une occasion pour les familles de se rassembler, de célébrer, de se reposer ou de voyager.

The holidays are a time for families to gather, celebrate, rest or travel.

En France, les vacances d’été sont souvent utilisées pour voyager.

In France, the summer holidays are often used for traveling.

Même si d’autres festivités ont lieu pendant cette période…

While other celebrations take place during this period…