How do you say 'more' in French?

There are various ways to say 'more' in French. Which one to use depends on the situation, for example whether you're using more to say "a larger/further quantity of" (more coffee), or whether you're using it to mean to a greater extent (more intelligent) etc. We'll look at the most common cases here.

more coffee, more cups, more work etc

This is possibly the most common situation, where more is used in a phrase with a noun such as more coffee, more red cups, and where the meaning is "an additional amount/number of...". In this case, there are two common ways to translate it:

  • plus de + noun or noun phrase
  • encore du/de la/des + noun or noun phrase

The words de and la are shortened to d' and l' before a vowel as usual, and de l' is used instead of du before a vowel. So here are some examples:

Noun typeWith plusWith encore
Masculineplus de café
more coffee
plus de lait
more milk
encore du café
more coffee
encore du lait
more milk
Feminineplus de confiture
more jam
encore de la confiture
more jam
Beginning with vowelplus d'eau
more water
encore de l'eau
more water
Pluralplus de pommes
more apples
encore des pommes
more apples
Plural beginning with vowelplus d'animaux
more animals
encore des animaux
more animals

Note that most expressions of quantity (beaucoup de..., trop de..., une bouteille de... etc) behave like plus and just take a "bare" de.

Pronunciation tip

Note that the -s on the end of plus is practically always pronounced nowadays, when&ndash and only when&ndash it means more (or "plus"). In the phrase plus de..., this will often sound like plu-z-de. (In general, French speakers tend to make s a voiced "z" sound before a d.)

Next: the comparative

On the next page, we look at the comparative in French: how to say more intelligent, more friendly etc.


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 French-English dictionary
 English-French dictionary



This page written by Neil Coffey. Copyright © Javamex UK 2017. All rights reserved.