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Get ready to learn everything you ever wanted to know about the basic French sentence “S’te plaît”.
Are included a complete guide of what it is and how you can use it in a conversation with an audio example. But that’s not all, we also added super useful stuff like dialogue example, slow pronunciation audio, synonym and more!
If you want, on this page you will find more of these sentences explained plus the directory of all our French words tutorials on this page. Have fun!
“S’te plait” is the informal way to say “Please” in French. It’s the shortened version of “S’il te plait” and it literally means “If it pleases you“.
Depending on the context, you should either use “S’te plait” (Informal & Singular) or “S’il te plait” (Neutral & Singular) or “S’il vous plaît” (Formal &/or Plural).
So, use “S’te plait” or “S’il te plaît” when talking to only one person and if you “know” this person already (a friend, a lover, a family member or anybody you can be informal with).
For example: “Papa, tu peux m’aider s’te plait ?” (Dad, can you help me, please?)
Now, it’s different if you are talking to several people and/or people you should show respect to (strangers, elderly, police, when meeting colleagues, etc.). Here you should use: “S’il vous plait“.
For example: “Pouvez-vous me donner le dossier s’il vous plaît ?” (Can you give me the folder please?)
Also, both are invariable, so never add an “s” at “plait” or at “il“. Just like you should never conjugate it with the genre and say “S’elle te plait” for example.
Finally, you will probably often see variations of “plait” with ‘î’ instead of ‘i’. Since 1990, both are ok and we prefer using the version with the “simple i” but it’s still used for official documents and some other situations. Anyway, you will NEVER be wrong by not putting the accent over the ‘i’.
For an even more informal version, you can use “Steup“. And for texting, we use massively “Stp” which is even shorter…
The “full” synonyms are:
And if you want something stronger, use one of these:
N.B: Depending on context, “Je t’en prie” can also mean: “You are welcome“