The French sentence "Pas mal" explained

Get prepared to discover everything you have to know about the basic French phrase "Pas mal". This include a complete explanation of what it is and how to use it in everyday life with an audio example. As well as the cool informations we sprinkled like dialogue example, synonym, slow pronunciation audio and more!

Translation in English

Translation : Not bad
Register : Neutral - Basic

Pronunciation guide

Slow

Normal

IPA : / pa mal /

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Pas mal meaning

Definition

It literally means:

Pas → Not
Mal → Bad

"Pas mal" is the French way to say "Not bad", typically after someone asks you "Ça va ?" (How are you?). But it can be used in many other cases and can also mean "Nice job / Way to go" or even "Quite a bit" depending on the context.

How to use it

The typical usage is to express "Not bad":

Comment ça va aujourd'hui ? → How are you today?
Pas mal, et toi ? → Not bad and you?

But it can also mean "Way to go" or "Nice job":

J'ai couru un marathon en 3 heures → I ran a marathon in 3 hours
Pas mal ! → Way to go! / Nice job!

Finally, it can be used as an adverb of quantity, similar to "quite a lot", "quite a bit" or "quite a few":

Tu as l'air en pleine forme → You seem to be in great shape
Merci, je fais pas mal de sport → Thanks, I do quite a lot of sport

Tu as assez de tomates pour cuisiner une pizza ? → Do you have enough tomatoes to cook a pizza?
Oui, j'ai acheté pas mal de tomates → Yes, I bought quite a few tomatoes
or...
Oui, j'en ai acheté pas mal → Yes, I bought quite a few of them

Synonyms / Related

C'est pas mal → It's / That's not bad
Pas trop mal → Not too bad
C'est pas trop mal → It's / That's not too bad

Example in a dialogue with French audio

Dialogue

Ton premier rendez-vous s'est bien passé ?

Did your first date went well?

Pas mal

Not bad

Raconte !

Tell me!