How to Say See You Later in French

You've just spent an hour chatting with a French friend at a café, and the conversation winds down naturally -- you'll see each other again tomorrow, so "au revoir" feels strangely heavy, like you're closing a door that's actually staying wide open. Every phrasebook teaches au revoir on day one and then leaves you stuck the moment you need something lighter.

That gap matters because English speakers default to one all-purpose goodbye, while French runs on a whole toolkit of them, each one signaling exactly how soon you expect to reconnect. Say the wrong one and you're not wrong exactly -- you just sound a little stiff, like ending a text to a close friend with "Sincerely." This post walks through the everyday ways to say see you later in French, from the vague and casual to the specific and scheduled, so you can match the goodbye to the moment instead of reaching for au revoir every time.

À Plus Tard and À Plus: The Everyday "See You Later"

The most common, all-purpose way to say see you later in French is à plus tard -- literally "until later" -- and its clipped cousin à plus, which French speakers use constantly in texts and casual conversation the way English speakers dash off "later!"

Key Phrases

• À plus tard (ah plew tar) -- see you later, until later
• À plus (ah plewss) -- see ya, later (casual, common in texting)
• À tout à l'heure (ah too tah luhr) -- see you in a bit (same day, soon)

[AUDIO: à plus tard, à plus]

Grammar Note

The pronunciation of that final s is where this phrase quietly trips people up.

• In à plus tard, the s of plus stays silent, the same way it does in most everyday uses of plus.
• In the clipped, standalone à plus, the s is pronounced out loud -- "ah plewss" -- specifically so it doesn't get swallowed into silence and disappear as a farewell.
• Common mistake: pronouncing à plus tard with a hard s (it should stay silent there), or dropping the s in the standalone à plus (where it needs to be heard).

À Bientôt and À La Prochaine: When "Later" Is Longer

Not every goodbye means you'll be back within the hour. À bientôt reaches further into the future -- days, maybe longer -- without pinning down an exact time, and à la prochaine leaves things even more open-ended.

Key Phrases

• À bientôt (ah byan-toh) -- see you soon
• À la prochaine (ah lah proh-shen) -- until next time, catch you later
• À un de ces jours (ah uhn duh say zhoor) -- see you one of these days (no real plan to meet soon)

The French goodbye rarely happens once. Watch a group of French friends leave a dinner party and you'll see the goodbye stretch on for another ten minutes -- one more story, a round of la bise (the cheek kisses), someone announcing they're leaving and then not leaving. Reaching for à bientôt is often just the opening line of that longer ritual, not the closing one.

Naming the Day: À Demain, À Lundi, À Ce Soir

French has a wonderfully efficient shortcut for goodbyes tied to a specific time: just à plus the time word itself, with the verb dropped entirely.

Key Phrases

• À demain (ah duh-man) -- see you tomorrow
• À ce soir (ah suh swahr) -- see you tonight
• À lundi (ah lun-dee) -- see you Monday
• À la semaine prochaine (ah lah suh-men proh-shen) -- see you next week

[AUDIO: à demain, à ce soir]

Grammar Note

This construction is really a shortened version of a full sentence like je te vois demain (I'll see you tomorrow) or on se voit lundi (we'll see each other Monday), with everything trimmed down to just à plus the time.

• à + [day, date, or time word] is a complete goodbye on its own -- no verb needed.
• Common mistake: adding a verb out of habit, producing something like je te vois à demain, which sounds redundant to a French speaker. À demain already does the whole job.
• Swap in any time word this way: à mardi (Tuesday), à la semaine prochaine (next week), à ce week-end (this weekend).

Casual vs. Formal: Reading the Room

Not every goodbye belongs in every conversation. Some of these phrases are strictly for friends and peers; others stay safe across every social situation you'll run into.

Key Phrases

• Salut (sah-lew) -- bye (also hi), strictly for friends and people your own age
• Au revoir (oh ruh-vwar) -- goodbye, the neutral, always-safe default
• Bonne journée / Bonne soirée (bun zhoor-nay / bun swah-ray) -- have a good day / have a good evening, often tacked onto a goodbye of any register

Au revoir never sounds wrong, even said to a close friend, which is exactly why it's the phrase every beginner learns first. À plus, à toute, and salut, on the other hand, would sound oddly familiar coming from you to a shopkeeper, a stranger, or your boss -- save them for people you'd also address as tu.

Ending the Conversation Naturally

Picture the moment this actually comes up: you're wrapping up a coffee with a French friend you'll see again tomorrow at a shared class. Instead of defaulting to au revoir, you'd naturally say something like, "Bon, à demain, alors ! Bonne soirée." (Okay, see you tomorrow, then! Have a good evening.) That single line does three things at once -- signals the goodbye, names exactly when you'll reconnect, and wishes them well until then, which is precisely how a French speaker would close it out.

Next time you're the one ending a conversation, run through the same three questions before you speak: How soon will I see this person again? Do I know exactly when, or just roughly? And how well do I know them? The answers point you straight to the right phrase, every time.

Practice Exercises

• Fill in the blank: You're meeting your French tutor again tomorrow. You say, "___ !"
• Translate into French (casual, texting a friend): "See ya!"
• True or false: in à plus, the final s is silent, just like it is in à plus tard.
• Multiple choice: which phrase best fits saying goodbye to a shop clerk you'll likely never see again? (a) à plus (b) au revoir (c) salut
• Fill in the blank: to say "see you Monday," you simply say "à ___."
• Translate into French: "See you soon!" (no set date in mind)

Answer Key

• À demain !
• À plus !
• False -- in à plus, the s is pronounced; it's à plus tard where the s stays silent.
• (b) Au revoir.
• à lundi.
• À bientôt !

Never Get Stuck at Au Revoir Again

• À plus tard and à plus cover the everyday, casual "see you later," while à bientôt and à la prochaine leave the timing looser.
• À + [time word] -- à demain, à lundi, à ce soir -- builds a complete goodbye with no verb needed at all.
• Au revoir stays the safe, neutral default for anyone you wouldn't address as tu, while salut and à plus are strictly for friends.

Try swapping in one of these the next time you end a French conversation, even a text -- and head over to Vocabulary for more everyday phrase sets, or Grammar for the full rules on tu vs. vous, since that's exactly what decides which goodbye fits.