Is non rude in French?

Not by itself, but a bare refusal is abrupt. Adding a short reason, as both exchanges on this page do, is the normal way to decline.

How do you make a sentence negative in French?

Two words go around the verb, one before it and one after it. The first reply on this page shows the pattern.

French · phrasebook

How to say no in French

No in French is non. It is the same word in every register. What changes is what follows it: French speakers rarely leave a refusal bare, and both exchanges below add a reason.

Aurélien CuvelierSep 19, 2026

non

anyone

The ways to say it

non

anyone

How to use it

In the first exchange a friend declines an invitation and says why: no time today. In the second, a customer turns down a size and says what she will do next. The reason is what makes the refusal polite, with tu as with vous.

The first reply also shows how French negates a verb: two small words wrap around it, one before and one after. The refusal and the negated sentence are separate, and French often gives you both in a row.

Watch out

In the first reply, the first of the two negation words loses its vowel and takes an apostrophe, because the verb after it starts with a vowel. French does this every time, in speech and in writing.

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.

Tu veux venir à la piscine avec moi ?Do you want to come to the swimming pool with me?Non, je n'ai pas le temps aujourd'hui.No, I don't have time today.

Vous avez trouvé votre taille, madame ?Have you found your size, madam?Non, je vais regarder dans un autre magasin.No, I'm going to look in another shop.

Questions people ask

Is non rude in French?: Not by itself, but a bare refusal is abrupt. Adding a short reason, as both exchanges on this page do, is the normal way to decline.
How do you make a sentence negative in French?: Two words go around the verb, one before it and one after it. The first reply on this page shows the pattern.

More French phrases

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

The whole French phrasebook on one page ›

Learn the words behind the phrases

The French course is on its way. Leave your email and get one message when it opens.

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.

More about how NuanceDeck is made ›