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The French sentence "Comment tu t'appelles" revealed

You are going to learn everything you need to know about the basic phrase “Comment tu t’appelles”.

Including a full explanation of what it is and how you can use it in a conversation with an audio example. And also the cool things we added like dialogue example, slow pronunciation audio and more!

Oh and before I forget, you will find more of these phrases explained on this page and the ultimate list of all our French words tutorials on this page. Enjoy!

English translation

How to pronounce it?

Slow pronunciation

Normal pronunciation

What does it mean?

Definition

“Comment tu t’appelles ?” is an informal way to say “What’s your name?” in French.

How to use it

In French, there are many ways to say “What’s your name“. So, if someone asks you one of these:

Comment tu t’appelles ?
Comment t’appelles tu ?
Comment vous appelez vous ? (Formal)
Quel est ton nom ?
Quel est votre nom ? (Formal)
C’est quoi ton nom ?
C’est quoi votre nom ? (Formal)
Ton nom ?
Votre nom ? (Formal)
Nom ?

Then you can answer :

Jean Dupont → Jean Dupont
Je m’appelle Jean Dupont → My name is Jean Dupont
Mon nom est Jean Dupont → My name is Jean Dupont
Je suis Jean Dupont → I am Jean Dupont

And if instead of “Nom” (Name) we asked you specifically for your “Prénom” (First name):

Jean → Jean
Je m’appelle Jean→ My (first) name is Jean
Mon prénom est Jean→ My first name is Jean
Je suis Jean → I am Jean

Finally, if we asked you specifically for your “Nom de famille” (Last name / Surname):

Dupont → Dupont
Je m’appelle Dupont→ My (last) name is Dupont
Mon nom de famille est Dupont→ My last name is Dupont

Example in a story with English translation

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

Le maître de la séduction

The master of seduction

___

C’était une belle journée ensoleillée.

It was a beautiful sunny day.

Alors, Emily et Philippe ont décidé de se rencontrer dans un parc et se promener un peu…

So Emily and Philippe have decided to meet in a park and walk around a bit…

Emily arriva au parc avant Philippe.

Emily arrived at the park before Philippe.

Elle trouva un banc libre, s’assit et attendit en lisant un article sur internet.

She found a free bench, sat down and waited while reading an article on internet.

Soudain, un mec bizarre s’assit à côté d’elle sur le banc.

Suddenly, a weird guy sat next to her on the bench.

Au début, Emily ne fit pas attention à lui.

At first, Emily didn’t pay attention to him.