What is the difference between excusez-moi and pardon?

Excusez-moi asks for attention and is addressed to someone you call vous. Pardon is a short apology that works with anyone.

How do you ask for directions politely in French?

Open with excusez-moi, ask your question, and close with please. The second exchange on this page does exactly that.

French · phrasebook

How to say excuse me in French

Excuse me in French is excusez-moi when you want someone's attention, and pardon when you have bumped into them or need to get past. Excusez-moi is built on vous, so it is the one for strangers.

Aurélien CuvelierSep 19, 2026

excusez-moi

excuse me

someone you call vous, or several people

The ways to say it

excusez-moi

excuse me

someone you call vous, or several people

pardon

same meaning

anyone

How to use it

The second exchange below is the classic use of excusez-moi: stopping someone in the street to ask the way to the station. It opens the sentence, and please closes it. In the first exchange a foot gets stepped on, and the apology is the short pardon.

Pardon works with anyone because it contains no tu and no vous. Excusez-moi is a verb in the imperative, in its vous form; the tense label under it in the example says so.

Watch out

The last letter of the first word of excusez-moi is silent. It is greyed in the example.

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.

Pardon, je t'ai marché sur le pied.Excuse me, I stepped on your foot.Ce n'est rien, ne t'inquiète pas.It's nothing, don't worry.

Excusez-moi, où est la gare, s'il vous plaît ?Excuse me, where is the station, please?Elle est juste derrière l'église.It's just behind the church.

Questions people ask

What is the difference between excusez-moi and pardon?: Excusez-moi asks for attention and is addressed to someone you call vous. Pardon is a short apology that works with anyone.
How do you ask for directions politely in French?: Open with excusez-moi, ask your question, and close with please. The second exchange on this page does exactly that.

More French phrases

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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