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Laura K. Lawless


French expression: Ça va

By , About.com GuideMarch 26, 2010

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 Do you know the many meanings of the French expression ça va? Click the link above to learn all about it, and then come back here to share your thoughts.
More: French expressions

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March 26, 2010 at 9:33 am
(1) Nancy Martin says:

J’adore ce site web, merci Laura. J’apprends le français, et ceci est mon premier message. Je voudrais ajouter l’expression, «Ça vous va bien». C’est un compliment qui signifie “It suits you well / It looks good on you”.

March 26, 2010 at 4:00 pm
(2) thomas says:

Comme #1, j’ai appris parfois “ça va” ou “ça vous va” pour indiquer que une chemise (ou autre vetement) est la correcte taille.

March 26, 2010 at 8:40 pm
(3) Délé Oyélakin says:

Quelle est la signification d’expression: ”ca va venir”?

March 27, 2010 at 2:06 am
(4) Laura K Lawless says:

Nancy et Thomas – C’est vrai que ça vous/te va veut dire “that looks good on you,” mais je ne le considère pas une variation de ça va, parce que ça n’est pas impersonnel, mais remplace un nom : cette chemise vous/te va, ton manteau vous/te va, etc.

Délé – ça va venir veut dire “it will happen, it will come.”

Laura K. Lawless
Learn French at About

March 30, 2010 at 6:01 am
(5) john says:

Laura K. Lawless, you are really doing a word of good for all the french beginners on this blog. Nevertheless i am confuse on the, under variations od french expressions. ‘ça va’ means ‘how is it going? But, you used ‘ça va aller?’ to mean ‘will it be ok? but, ‘aller’ itself means ‘to go’; This is a bit confusing for i and other begininers. Can you ewpansiate a little bit on this. Yhanks

March 30, 2010 at 6:41 am
(6) Laura K Lawless says:

Bonjour John – You have to get out of the habit of translating everything literally. Ça va aller is an idiomatic expression. Literally it means “is it going to go?” but what it really means is “is that going to be ok?”

It’s the same in English – “it’s raining cats and dogs” doesn’t literally mean that animals are falling from the sky, right? So you just have to learn what idiomatic expressions really mean, and that is the point of my expression of the week.

Bonne continuation !

Laura K. Lawless
Learn French at About

May 24, 2010 at 4:45 am
(7) Joyce says:

bojour! Je m’appelle Joyce! J’habitte a Australie! Je Australien. J’adore ce “website” merci! Ce site est tres tres bien!

June 3, 2010 at 12:55 pm
(8) DCcajun says:

here’s a suggestion to liven up a small talk response to “Comment ça va”…..a possible response: “Mieux que ca et les pretres seraient jaloux!” Louisiana french translation: “Any better than this and the priests would be jealous!” which is to say “Things are going very well”.

June 23, 2010 at 4:15 am
(9) David says:

Hi, Laura…

Can one also say: “Cette jupe/cravate va à toi” as an alternative to “Cette jupe/cravate te va”?

. . . . . . . . . .

No, the object pronoun has to precede the verb.

Laura K. Lawless
Learn French at About

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