7.16: Structure - Tout, toute, tous and toutes

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Objectif

In this section, you will learn how to express "all" and "everything" with tout, toute, tous and toutes

Media Alternative

Listen to the audio clips that follow on this page to hear the French pronunciation of vocabulary and examples presented.

On étudie !

When you want to talk about all of something or everything, you will need to know the word tout. It can be an adjective, a pronoun, or an adverb. You have already seen it in passages likes tout de suite, tout le monde and pas du tout.

(a) As an adjective, tout means all or the whole in English, and it must agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies:

J’ai mangé tous les croissants. (I ate all the croissants. )

Je te dis toute la vérité. (I am telling you the whole truth.)

Jorge parle tout le temps. (Jorge talks all the time. )

Toutes mes amies viennent à la soirée. (All my friends are coming to the party.)

(b) As a pronoun, tout corresponds to everything in English, and it does not need to agree with anything.

Tout va bien. (Everything is going well)

Les enfants mangent tout. (The kids eat everything.)

(c) As an adverb, it means something like very or quite. This is an interesting case of tout, because it only needs to agree with a feminine noun that starts with a consonant, and not with feminine nouns starting with a vowel. Fortunately, you can’t hear this distinction when you speak French. Here are some examples:

Elle est toute petite. (She is very small.)

Je suis tout ouïe [ouïe = f.] (I am all ears.)

La transmission des valeurs sociales et morales commence dans les tous premiers mois et les toutes premières années de la vie. (The transmission of social and moral values begins in the very first months and the very first years of life.)

(d) Here are some useful idiomatic expressions with tout:

Expressions avec tout
Français	Anglais
à tout moment	at any moment
à tout prix	at all costs
tout le monde	everyone, everybody
tous les jours	everyday
tout le temps	all the time
à tout à l’heure	see you in a bit, soon
tout à l’heure	a moment ago
tout à fait	absolutely
tout de suite	right away, immediately
tout au long de	throughout
tout près	very close
tous, toutes les deux	both of them
tout au fond	all the way at, to the bottom
tout d’un coup, tout à coup	all of a sudden
(pas) du tout	(not) at all
rien du tout	nothing at all
c’est tout(e) un(e)…	It’ a whole…
c’est tout un art	It’s an art
c’est tout un monde	It’s a whole world
c’est tout un bordel	It’s a whole mess
c’est toute une expérience	It’s quite an experience

Ressources supplémentaires

Watch this video to learn how to use Tout, toute, tous, toutes.

Read more about ways to use Tout, toute, tous, toutes.

Explore these idiomatic expressions with tout:

On approfondit !

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