Bonjour DearPrudence,
Bienvenue sur le forum !

1. Il n'y a pas de questions stupides, il n'y a que des questions.
2. I wish you a nice evening pourrait-il faire l'affaire ?

 

Moi, je dirais "Have a nice evening" ou simplement "Good evening".

 

E-J, on dit 'Good Evening' au moment où on rencontre la personne et 'have a nice evening' quand on part d'habitude.

 

I agree with Amityville. Prudence, may I compliment you on your correct usage of the apostrophe in "its" and it's". Many native speakers get this wrong.

 

Welcome to the forum, dear Prudence
And...greet the brand new day

 

Yes, I agree with that, Prudence. I wish my French were as good as your English.

 

I would happily use 'good evening' as an alternative to 'goodbye' as I'm leaving a restaurant, for example.

 

E J, I think that usage would be very upper middle class in register and would not be in general usage across classes. What do you think?

 

Oh no, I've unwittingly revealed the truth about my very upper middle class identity

I use it to be courteous.

 

EJ, I really meant no offence at all. I do maintain that to say "good evening" instead of "goodbye" is posh. Please don't take offence - I am being objective.

 

No offence taken! I hoped the smiley would clarify that

It really depends on the context. I would never say 'Good evening' to friends ... I'd say 'See you!' and the reverse applies to the restaurant scenario I was describing.

In most situations, including DearPrudence's example (the shopkeeper) I actually think a simple 'Goodbye' would be the most natural thing to say.

 

Eh bien! Je m'inquietais un peu.

 

I totally agree with E-J. On the proper context, I will myself answer when leaving a restaurant: Bye (Goodbye!)! See you soon!
Edit= & a ''Thank you! (of course)

 

Bonjour!

Can you plz translate this sentence to english?

"Bonne fin de journée"

Merci

 

maybe, have a nice evening? or simply Good Evening is more common.
Hope this helps!

 

"Enjoy the rest of your day" is correct? Is there a difference between the writing and oral discussion?

Thanks

 

it means have a good day.....

 

well I love "have a good evening"

 

You're absolutely right, but in fact does anybody actually say these things? Apart from well-drilled hotel employees for instance?

I know that in the past 20 years I've lived in France, I've come across a whole pile of such phrases (bonne fin de week-end, bonne continuation...) which have absolutely no equivalent in everyday spoken (UK) English. I'm certain that I've never in my life spoken the words: enjoy the rest of your afternoon.

 

I think that must be it.

 

Thank you so much but is there a difference between the writing and oral discussion?

 

No, there is not.

 

I'm not a big fan of translating "Bonne fin de journée" by "Enjoy the rest of your day". That's more "Bon reste de journée". Imho, "Bonne fin de journée", which really means "Good late day" (after 4 or 5 going into early evening), could just be translated by "Good afternoon" (around 4) or "Good evening" (after 5).

 

Icetrance, is this another UK/US division? Because I'd never say "Good evening" to a person when leaving them, only when greeting them.

For me: Good evening means hello, good night means goodbye. Bonne fin de journée also means goodbye (but it's not late enough to go to bed). I suppose I'd translate it as: "Have a nice evening" or "Enjoy your evening".

 

You're right, Keith: We would say "Have a nice evening/Enjoy your evening" as well in North America. I wasn't realizing the full context here.

Thank you for pointing that out.

 

I am emailing a potential future co-worker. I usually end my emails with "yours sincerely" or "yours faithfully", but the previous few messages were quite informal.

Is it acceptable to end my email with something like "have a good day"? If it is correct, what do I say if I send my email at, like, 6:00 PM? "Have a nice end of day"? "Have a good evening"?

 

'Best Regards' is quite a popular one.

 

Je mets un mélange des 2 lorsque mes emails ne sont pas formels : "have a nice evening" (et on me répond généralement "have a nice evening too")

 

Cordially est passe-partout et très courant.

 

Also: "Enjoy the rest of the day!" if there's something special about that day, e.g., it's your birthday, but usually bonne fin de journée doesn't mean that, it's just a normal sign-off, so LostInLanguage's "best regards" works in most cases, or micia's suggestion in #3.

 

Best regards is fine.

But I often say "have a good day" too - this is more informal. It doesn't matter at what time you send your email: a good "day" is always appropriate.

 

Lamy08, I'm not sure I've seen cordially used very often on its own at the end of an email. It seems a bit stand-offish to me...