Home > French Words > French Phrases > YOU ARE HERE
Are you ready to find out everything you ever wanted to know about the basic word “Couci-couça”?
This include a detailed explanation of what it is and how to use it in a conversation with an audio example. And because we want to help you on your learning journey, we also sprinkled super useful stuff like dialogue example, synonyms, slow pronunciation audio and more!
Oh and if you are interested, on this page you will find more of these words pages and all our French words guides on this page. Wishing you a happy learning!
It’s a funny way for French people to say “So-so“. And it’s very similar to another French expression with the same meaning “Comme-ci comme ça“.
It’s useful when someone asks for your opinion, but you don’t have a firm point of view on the topic. When you can’t (or don’t want to) decide between “It’s lame” and ” It’s amazing“. It’s a very neutral answer.
For example, you are asked: “Tu aimes ma nouvelle coiffure ?” (Do you like my new haircut?) But if you have mixed feelings about it, then you can say: “Couci-couça” or “Comme-ci comme-ça” (So-so).
Where is this coming from? To find the answer, we need to travel to… Italy!
In Italian: “Così così” means “So-so“, then French people started to use something similar: “Couci-couci“, which became with time: “Couci-couça“. That’s already far-fetched, right? But wait! That’s not over!
“Couci-couça” is an expression made of words that doesn’t exist in French (“Couci” and “Couça“). But it does sound a lot like words we actually use… Comme… ci… comme… ça !
Boom. This is how you create an expression!
N.B. Nowadays, you can still use “Couci-couça” but “Couci-couci” disappeared.