What does santé literally mean?

Health. A French toast is a wish for good health.

What is the difference between à la tienne and à la vôtre?

À la tienne goes with tu, one person you are close to. À la vôtre goes with vous: someone you address formally, or several people.

French · phrasebook

How to say cheers in French

Cheers in French is santé. The word means health, and a toast is a wish for it. To toast a particular person, French says à la tienne to someone you call tu and à la vôtre to someone you call vous, or to a group.

Aurélien CuvelierSep 19, 2026

santé

cheers

anyone

The ways to say it

santé

cheers

anyone

à la tienne

same meaning

one person you call tu

à la vôtre

same meaning

someone you call vous, or several people

How to use it

The two exchanges below are the same toast made twice, to a new job. With tu, the speaker raises a glass and says à la tienne. With vous, the same sentence ends on à la vôtre. In both, the reply is santé.

À la tienne and à la vôtre literally mean to yours: to your health, with the word for health left out. They follow the same tu and vous split as the rest of the sentence.

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.

Je lève mon verre à ton nouveau travail. À la tienne !I raise my glass to your new job. Cheers!Merci ! Santé, et bonne soirée à tous !Thank you! Cheers, and have a good evening everyone!

Je lève mon verre à votre nouveau travail. À la vôtre !I raise my glass to your new job. Cheers!Merci ! Santé, et bonne soirée à tous !Thank you! Cheers, and have a good evening everyone!

Questions people ask

What does santé literally mean?: Health. A French toast is a wish for good health.
What is the difference between à la tienne and à la vôtre?: À la tienne goes with tu, one person you are close to. À la vôtre goes with vous: someone you address formally, or several people.

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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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