How to make polite requests in French

You may hear the wonderful phrase merci de bien vouloir patienter if you are put on hold when calling a French business.

You are being asked to wait, but it literally translates as ‘thank you for being willing to wait’, which seems needlessly complicated.

While English speakers start a request with ‘please’, French requests often begin with merci de, which can be confusing. 

When I discussed this with a friend, she explained that the full phrase is merci d’avance, or more correctly merci par avance de (‘thank you in advance for’), but ‘in advance’ has gradually fallen by the wayside. 

Remember that vouloir means ‘to want’, while bien vouloir means ‘to be willing’. In the initial phrase, you are not only being asked to wait, but to be willing to do so. 

When bien vouloir is used as an imperative – veuillez bien – this creates another polite request, as in veuillez bien fermer la porte. 

This is clearly a request to close the door, but, taken literally, it is an imperative telling you to be willing to close the door.

If you take it a step further, you reach the phrase: Merci de bien vouloir vous donner la peine de fermer la porte (‘Thank you for being willing to give yourself the trouble of closing the door’). At this point, even French speakers agree that it starts to sound sarcastic.

A final point worth mentioning is that word order is paramount: bien must come before vouloir. 

An article in the archives of Le Monde (1949) reminds us that, according to an old military tradition, if you change the sequence and say merci de vouloir bien, it becomes an order used by a superior to a subordinate. This version might offend the wrong ears.

If you have a request, simply stick with merci par avance de… and you should be fine.