Greetings through the day

Bonjour opens a conversation and bonne journée closes it: the two look alike but are not interchangeable.

English has good morning, good afternoon and good evening. French divides the day differently. Bonjour covers the morning and the afternoon, and bonsoir takes over in the evening. On top of these comes a second set of phrases that are not greetings at all but wishes, said when you part: bonne journée, bonne soirée, bonne nuit. Mixing up the two sets is one of the most common beginner mistakes, and this unit sorts them out.

Bonjour and bonsoir

Bonjour is used from the moment you wake up until the evening. There is no separate good morning in standard French, and no greeting for the afternoon. Bonsoir (good evening) starts when evening begins. There is no official hour: many people switch around six in the evening, others when it gets dark, so in winter it may come earlier. If you are unsure, bonjour is never really wrong in the late afternoon. Note that bonsoir, unlike bonjour, can be used both when you meet someone and when you leave in the evening, as the OQLF points out.

Greetings and wishes

The OQLF draws a clear line between greetings (formules de salutation) and wishes (formules de souhait). Bonjour and bonsoir greet. Bonne journée (have a good day), bonne soirée (have a good evening), bon après-midi (have a good afternoon), bonne fin de journée (have a good rest of the day) and bonne nuit (good night) are wishes, and they close a conversation. So you walk into a shop with bonjour and walk out with bonne journée. Saying bonne journée as you arrive sounds as odd as saying have a nice day when you walk in. Bonne nuit is for bedtime, not a general goodbye after dark: at the end of a dinner party you say bonsoir or bonne soirée, and bonne nuit only to someone going to sleep.

The same pattern extends to other wishes you will hear every day: bon appétit (enjoy your meal), bon week-end, bonnes vacances (have a good holiday), bon voyage. Notice that bon becomes bonne before feminine words such as journée, soirée and nuit. You heard the difference in the script course: bon has a nasal vowel, bonne a plain vowel and a real n.

The same split shows up in emails and messages. Bonjour followed by a name is a common friendly way to open an email to someone you know, and Bonsoir works the same way if you write late in the day. At the end, a wish takes the place of a greeting: Bonne journée, Bonne fin de journée or Bon week-end, followed by your name. Using a wish at the start of a message would read as oddly as it sounds in person.