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 type | With plus | With encore |
|---|
| Masculine | plus de café
more coffee
plus de lait
more milk | encore du café
more coffee
encore du lait
more milk |
| Feminine | plus de confiture
more jam | encore de la confiture
more jam |
| Beginning with vowel | plus d'eau
more water | encore de l'eau
more water |
| Plural | plus de pommes
more apples | encore des pommes
more apples |
| Plural beginning with vowel | plus 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.)
English
