Polite forms for an office or a counter
At a counter the difference between getting helped and getting nowhere is a handful of fixed phrases. Learn them as blocks; the grammar behind them comes in week 23.
Asking for something
| Je voudrais … | I would like … (never je veux at a counter) |
|---|---|
| J'aimerais … | I would like … (slightly softer) |
| Est-ce que je peux … ? | May I … ? |
| Il me faudrait … | I would need … |
Je veux un formulaire is not rude in grammar but it is rude in effect — it is what a small child says. je voudrais is the default.
Asking someone else to do something
| Pourriez-vous m'aider ? | Could you help me? |
|---|---|
| Est-ce que vous pourriez répéter ? | Could you repeat? |
| Auriez-vous un stylo ? | Would you have a pen? |
| Veuillez remplir ce formulaire. | Please fill in this form. (written) |
veuillez is the imperative of vouloir and it appears on almost every official letter — veuillez vous présenter, veuillez apporter. You will read it far more often than you say it.
Opening and closing
- Excusez-moi / Pardon, — to interrupt or to start.
- S'il vous plaît — at the end of a request, not at the start.
- Je vous remercie — a step up from merci.
- Bonne journée — how the exchange ends. Not optional; leaving without it reads as walking off mid-sentence.
The pattern to notice: every polite form above is longer than the direct one. Politeness in French is expressed by length and indirectness, so a request that feels excessive to an English ear is usually correct.
Knowing the rule is not the same as producing it.
This page explains the pattern. The track drills it: the point arrives inside a mini-dialogue, then production marked against a CEFR descriptor, then a module test that returns you to your two weakest sessions if you miss it.