#and i feel you re: not trusting internet articles for this stuff they are traitors

[hedgehog-moss]

Hi! Can I ask you a question about France? How common or uncommon or weird is the use of coucou as a greeting? Especially between adults. Would it be super weird if I went to France and greeted someone like that?

I don't trust the click-baity articles that show up when I google this (I'm not even sure all of them were written by humans), so I'd rather ask someone that, you know, actually lives over there.

Thanks, have a nice day

Hi! Coucou is a pretty common greeting including between adults (though it's more often used by women as it does sound a bit cutesy), but I think it implies pre-established friendly relations, unlike the neutral Bonjour or Salut. I only use it with family and friends. Friendly acquaintances too—okay now that I think about it, it's hard to say where I draw the coucou line. I use it as a greeting when I enter the library if there's no one in there but the librarian because I know her well, but if there are other people in the room I say bonjour even if they're children. And of course if I knew the librarian very well but didn't like her she wouldn't get a coucou. You kind of have to follow your heart with this greeting.

But definitely don't use it to greet people in a shop or formal context or anyone you don't know well because that would be weird (in my view!) Coucou sounds affectionate, I often use it in writing to set the tone ("Hi I am an informal unthreatening email !") (also if a French person sends you a text that starts with Cc, that's textspeak for coucou)

To me "Salut !" is "Hi!" while "Coucou" is Hi :) <3

#ask #maybe other french people feel differently about it? #and i feel you re: not trusting internet articles for this stuff they are traitors #sometimes i look up a polysyllabic latin-rooted word we use in french like does it exist in english too? #and several serious-looking websites tell me yeah this word totally exists in english go ahead! #we've adopted it from french it's fine #then i ask a native speaker and they're like no one has ever used this word out loud without sounding like a pretentious tryhard ever