Everything about the French sentence "Je n'ai pas peur"

Are you ready to discover all the things you need to know about the basic French phrase “Je n’ai pas peur”?

To be more specific, this includes a detailed guide of what it is and how you can use it in a casual conversation with an audio example. And because we want to help you on your learning journey, we also sprinkled some useful informations like slow pronunciation audio, dialogue example and more!

Oh and in case you are interested, on this page you can find our others phrases tutorials plus all our tutorials about French words on this page. Wish you a happy learning!

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French to English translation

How to pronounce it

Slow pronunciation

Normal pronunciation

What does it mean exactly?

Definition

The literal meaning is:

  • Je → I
  • N’ai pas → Have not
  • Peur → Fear

It’s translated in English as “I’m not afraid” or “I’m not scared“, because we don’t have the same difference between “scared” vs. “afraid” in French.

As you can see, we use “have + fear” to express this feeling while in English you use “be + afraid/scared“. So in French “fear” is rather something you have than something you are.

The antonym is “J’ai peur” (I’m scared / I’m afraid).

How to use it

You can use it to talk about phobias, for example: “Je n’ai pas peur des araignées” (I’m not scared of spiders) or “J’ai peur des araignées” (I’m scared of spiders).

But also while talking about something that might happen, for example, someone asks you: “Tu n’as pas peur que ton avion s’écrase ?” (Aren’t you afraid that your plane might crash?). In this case you can say: “Non, je n’ai pas peur” (No, I’m not afraid). Here, it has a sense of “Being anxious about something“.

You can also use the shorter version: “J’ai pas peur” which has exactly the same meaning, but it’s more informal.

Synonyms and similarities

  • J’ai pas peur. (“I’m not afraid“)
  • Même pas peur. (“Not even afraid“)
  • Tu n’as pas peur. (“You are not afraid“)
  • Il n’a pas peur. (“He is not afraid“)
  • Elle n’a pas peur. (“She’s not afraid“)
  • Vous n’avez pas peur. (“You are not afraid“)(Formal and plural)
  • Nous n’avons pas peur. (“We are not afraid“)
  • Ils n’ont pas peur. (“They are not afraid“)(Masculine and mixed)
  • Elles n’ont pas peur. (“They are not afraid“)(Feminine)

Example in a story with translation

Now, let’s see a complete example of this idiom in a story with slow French audio and the English translation below.
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Un monstre !
A monster!
___
Rémi a entendu un cri venant de la chambre à coucher…
Rémi heard a scream from the bedroom…
Il a couru dans la pièce et a trouvé Karine debout, sur le lit…
He ran into the room and saw Karine standing, on the bed…
Rémi:   Qu’est-ce qu’il se passe ?
What is happening?
Karine:   Un… un… un monstre…
A… a… a monster…
Rémi:   Quoi ? Qu’est-ce que tu racontes ?
What? What are you talking about?
Elle a pointé le mur du doigt.
She pointed to the wall with her finger.
Karine:   Regarde ! Il y a une énorme araignée !
Look! There’s a huge spider!
Sans aucune hésitation, Rémi a pris sa chaussure…
Without any hesitation Rémi took his shoe…
Il est venu plus près du mur, pour mieux voir l’araignée.
He came closer to the wall, to see the spider better.
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