How Do You Say Beautiful in French

From LoveToKnow French

How do you say 'beautiful' in French? There are a plethora of ways as expressions for the word 'beautiful' are numerous in French. Whether you're in love with a woman or a landscape, the French language has many ways to describe it, both with the direct translation belle and with other expressions.

La Belle Provence

How Do You Say Beautiful in French: Translation

The translation for the word 'beautiful' is belle. While in English, beautiful is reserved for women and for beautiful things, the French language has one word (feminine form: belle, masculine form: beau) that describes absolutely everything, from a woman to châteaux. If you want to describe a beautiful woman, you use the feminine form; a handsome man uses the masculine form. If you want to say that a thing is beautiful, then you use the gender of the thing you are describing to determine which form of the word to use.

Examples

une belle femme: a beautiful woman
un homme beau: a handsome man (note that although many beauty adjectives precede the noun instead of following it, the correct spelling would be un bel homme, and therefore the ellipsis un homme beau, short for un homme qui est beau is often used.
une belle maison: a beautiful house
un très beau paysage: a beautiful landscape

Additional Phrases on Beauty

The literal translation for telling someone that they are beautiful is to say tu es très belle or tu es très beau. Alternatively, the word 'joli(e)' can be used. If you need something even stronger, try one of these phrases:

Tu es la plus belle fille/le plus beau garçon que j'ai jamais vu(e).: You're the most beautiful girl/handsome boy I've ever seen.
Pourquoi es-tu si belle/beau?: Why are you (how did you get to be) so beautiful/handsome?
Tu es aussi belle/beau que…(): You're as beautiful/handsome as…(insert what you find the most beautiful thing in the world to be)

Other Phrases with Belle/Beau

Many phrases incorporate the word 'belle/beau' into the phrase:

à la belle étoile: under the open (starry) sky
la Belle France: literally means the beautiful France, but is used as an expression of affection towards the mother country
la belle province: the beautiful province (used to refer to Québec)
la belle Provence: beautiful Provence (the province of Provence, France)
un beau mensonge: literally means a beautiful lie; implies that the lie is crafty, almost believable
belle-mère, belle-soeur, beau-frère/père: mother, sister, brother, father-in-law

In addition, some expressions in English have borrowed the word 'belle' from French, such as "Southern Belle" and the "Belle of the ball".

Beauty in Music

In the Disney movie, and musical, Beauty and the Beast, the female lead is named Belle.

In the musical, and Disney movie, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (in French: Nôtre-Dame de Paris), there is an entire song entitled 'Belle'. The opening line of this song is another great way to express that someone is beautiful: "'Belle', c'est un mot qu'on dirait inventé pour elle". This translates to: "the word 'beautiful' must have been invented to describe her." Watch a live performance of Garou performing 'Belle' on YouTube, or read the lyrics of the song, written by Luc Plamondon.

Beautiful Names

Did you know that several women's names stem from the French word 'beautiful'? For example, the name 'Mabel' means, quite literally, 'my belle', and can be spelled 'Mabelle' or 'Maybelle' alternatively.

Several names end with 'belle' or 'bella' (the Italian equivalent of French belle), such as Isabelle/Isabella, Annabelle/Annabella, Arabelle/Arabella, Maribelle/Maribella etc. The name 'Carabella' is quite rare, but incorporates the root 'cara' (sweet) with the root 'bella'; the ideal name for a beautiful, sweet, baby girl!

All this information on the French word for beautiful will probably make it so that you never have to wonder "how do you say 'beautiful' in French?" again.

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