Explaining You Don't Understand 

In this article we are going to teach you some helpful phrases which you can use to make sure you are understood, and how to explain if you don’t understand what someone is saying.

These phrases are especially important if you’re not fully confident in what you’re saying in French, and if you don’t understand something that someone has said to you.

So with this in mind, let’s learn a few phrases:

First we will learn how to say “Sorry, I don’t understand”.

This is “Excusez-moi, je ne comprends pas” in French.

By the way, don’t be afraid to use this phrase when you don’t understand what someone is saying to you.

It’s better to be honest and ask, than to pretend to understand what someone has said.

 Another phrase that you will find useful is how to say “Please could you repeat that? I didn’t understand.” This is “Est-ce que vous pouvez repeater, s’il vous plait? Je n’ai pas compris”.

One last phrase that you could use is “Sorry, I didn’t understand what you said”. To say this in French you will say “Excusez-moi, je n’ai pas compris ce que vous avez dit.”

Okay, make sure you learn these phrases, as they will serve you well while you work on improving your French language skills.

Next we will learn a few key phrases you can use when you don’t understand something in French.

The first phrase to learn is “How do you say xxxxx in French?” This phrase is “Comment est-ce qu’on dit xxxxxx en francais?” (Obviously you replace the x marks with what the other person said).

This phrase will come in useful whenever you want to learn a few words from someone in French, too.

Next, we will learn the phrase “what’s this called in French?” This is “Comment ca s’appelle en francais?”

Another useful phrase similar to the last one is “Pardon, qu’est-ce que xxxx veut dire?” This means “Sorry, what does xxxx mean?” You can use this phrase in many situations where you don’t understand a word or phrase that you’ve just heard.

An alternative is to say “Sorry, what did you say?” This is “Pardon, qu’est-ce que vous avez dit?”

The next useful phrase is “Would you mind speaking more slowly?” This is “Je peux vous demander de parler plus lentement?” This phrase will come in useful if you’re not used to talking to French natives, as you may not be used to listening to French spoken fast and naturally.

Another phrase along the same lines as the previous one is “Je peux te demander de repeater ce que tu as dit?” This means “Would you mind repeating what you just said?”