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Polite French Expression
| Meaning | enjoy your meal | |
| Literally | good appetite | |
| Register | normal | |
| Pronunciation |  |
[boh nah pay tee] |
| IPA | [bɔ na pe ti] | |
Usage notes: Rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated: the French expression bon appétit is everywhere. Regardless of whether you’ll be eating together and even when there’s no food in sight, in big cities and small villages and at the park and on the plane, any time you talk to someone around mealtime, it’s polite to say bon appétit or, informally, bon app.
English speakers, especially Francophiles, often say bon appétit in French,* as the literal translation just doesn’t make much sense. Speakers of other European languages stick to literal equivalents that sound much more idiomatic:
| Catalan | Bon profit | |
| Corsican | Bon appetitu | |
| German | Guten Appetit | |
| Italian | Buon appetito | |
| Latvian | Labu apetīti | |
| Occitan | Bon apetís | |
| Portuguese | Bom apetite | |
| Romanian | Poftă bună | |
| Spanish | Buen apetito or Buen provecho |
* Or in pseudo French, when they mistakenly pronounce the final t.
Related lessons
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