201 – How to Say "I Love You" in French
In this lesson, you’ll learn how to say “I love you” in French (to one or several people). 💞
After the lesson, head over to the French Made Easy Exercise Library to practice!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Links & Cheat Sheet:
📝 Lesson Cheat Sheet: How to Say “I Love You” in French
Transcript
Bonjour à tous, hello everyone, and welcome back to the French Made Easy podcast. This is episode number 201, numéro 201.
In today’s short and sweet lesson, you’ll learn how to say “I love you” in French… a pretty useful phrase to learn, especially this time of year with valentine’s day coming up in a few days. ❤️
In today’s lesson, I’ll show you how to say it to one person, or several.
Before we start, as always, if you’re new to the podcast, welcome! Make sure to grab your lesson’s cheat sheet so you can follow along while you listen. Now, it’s a very straight to the point lesson, so no exercises for you today, but you can still go over the French Made Easy Exercise Library and get access to all the previous exercises from the podcast, it’s free, all the links are in the podcast notes.
Alright, so how do we say “I love you” in French?
💘 HOW TO SAY I LOVE YOU IN FRENCH (TO ONE PERSON)
Very simple, please repeat after me: Je t’aime.
IPA: /ʒə tɛm/
Use “Je t’aime” if you are speaking to one person.
Now, if you’re an absolute beginner and you’re just starting your French learning journey, maybe just stop here. But if you’re what I call a forever beginner, keep listening, we’re going to break it down.
I love you:
“I” = “Je”
love, conjugated in the first person of the singular, in the present tense = “aime”
So far, we have: JE + AIME
By the way, I’ve got an episode on the conjugation in the present tense of the verb aimer, it is episode number 61 of the podcast.
you = “t’”
Now, you might be wondering why we use “t’” and not “tu” or “toi.”
In that context, “you” is a direct object pronoun.
Now, I’m not going to dive deep into direct object pronoun today, but it is a pronoun, receiving the action of the verb.
I love who? → you
“You” is receiving the action of the verb “aimer”.
In grammar term, we call that a direct objet pronoun.
And the direct object pronoun for “YOU” = “TE”.
The direct object pronoun, “te” or “t’” is placed before the conjugated verb “aime”
so far we have: subject : ”JE” + “TE” + “AIME”.
Because “aime” starts with the vowel “A”, “te” becomes “t’”
→ → → JE + T’ + AIME = JE T’AIME
Hopefully that makes sense :)
💘 HOW TO SAY I LOVE YOU IN FRENCH (TO SEVERAL PEOPLE)
If you are talking to several people (for example, if I’m talking to all of you listening right now) I would say: Je + vous + aime.
I love you (plural) ⇒ Je vous aime
IPA: /ʒə vu zɛm/.
Here, we use VOUS instead of TE, because VOUS is the direct object pronoun for “you” in the plural form.
Et voilà. Now you now how to say I love you (to one or several people.)
RECAP’
Je t’aime → when speaking to one person .
Je vous aime → when speaking to several people.
French Made Easy Exercise Library
That’s it for today’s short and sweet lesson. I’ll chat with you in the next episode.
À bientôt, bye.