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We are going to teach you everything you ever wanted to know about the basic French expression “Quoi de neuf”.
To be more precise, it includes a detailed explanation of what it is and how to use it in a normal conversation with an audio example. And also the cool stuff we added like dialogue example, slow pronunciation audio, synonyms and more!
In case you are interested, you will find more expressions explained like this one on this page and the directory of all our French words guides on this page. Ready to learn? Let’s go!
“Quoi de neuf ?” is a popular French expression used to say “What’s up?“. It literally means “What’s new?“
It can be used in two different ways…
First, you can use it with someone you haven’t met for a long time, to ask for a little recap of what happened since the last time you met.
In this case, it’s very useful as a conversation filler after the usual greetings or when you don’t know what to say anymore… For that, simply ask “Quoi de neuf ?” in the middle of the conversation.
But it can also be used to start a conversation. In this case it has the informal meaning of “How are you?“. So it’s common to hear a French conversation going like:
Because here, you aren’t really asked to talk about what’s “up” in your life…
You might find on the internet that this expression literally means “What’s nine?” which is totally wrong.
The confusion comes from the fact that, depending on the context, the French word “Neuf” can mean “Nine” or “New“.
But with “Quoi de neuf ?“, it’s 100% sure “New“. So don’t believe any other explanation.
