What does à tes souhaits literally mean?

To your wishes. It is a wish that they come true, said when someone sneezes.

How do you reply to à tes souhaits?

With a thank you, as in both exchanges on this page.

French · phrasebook

How to say bless you in French

Bless you in French, after a sneeze, is à tes souhaits to someone you call tu and à vos souhaits to someone you call vous. Word for word it says to your wishes: may they come true.

Aurélien CuvelierSep 19, 2026

à tes souhaits

bless you

one person you call tu

The ways to say it

à tes souhaits

bless you

one person you call tu

à vos souhaits

same meaning

someone you call vous, or several people

How to use it

The two exchanges below are the same sneeze, once among friends and once with vous. The speaker adds a question about a cold, and the answer is thanks, it is only the dust. The reply to the phrase is a plain thank you.

Watch out

Four letters of the last word are written and not pronounced. They are all greyed in the examples, which is why the phrase sounds much shorter than it looks.

In a real conversation

Each exchange is a line and its reply. Greyed letters are written and not pronounced. A tie marks a liaison, with the sound you hear under it. A label under a verb names its tense when it is not the present.

À tes souhaits ! Tu as attrapé froid ?Bless you! Did you catch a cold?Merci ! C'est juste la poussière.Thanks! It is just the dust.

À vos souhaits ! Vous avez attrapé froid ?Bless you! Did you catch a cold?Merci ! C'est juste la poussière.Thanks! It is just the dust.

Questions people ask

What does à tes souhaits literally mean?: To your wishes. It is a wish that they come true, said when someone sneezes.
How do you reply to à tes souhaits?: With a thank you, as in both exchanges on this page.

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Each one with its tu and vous forms, its register and real exchanges.

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Written by

Aurélien Cuvelier Founder, NuanceDeck

Aurélien Cuvelier builds NuanceDeck: the app, and the verification pipeline behind its dictionary. Every entry is grounded in the official TORFL lexical minimum and a 20,000-word frequency corpus, and every example sentence passes a certification review before it ships.

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