# R.S.V.P.



## MeganMcD

Hi there. 

We need a little help making a party invitation for a school project my son is doing in French. Can you please help us? Please and thank-you!

How do I say:

"R.S.V.P to Duncan by calling 555-5555 no later than April 30, 2006."


I need all the help I can get as soon as possible thank-you!

Meg


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## Auryn

RSVP à Duncan, tél: 555-5555 au plus tard le 30 avril 2006.


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## marie_h

I would say: "*Rendez-vous chez Duncan, merci d'appeler au 555-5555 avant le 30 avril 2006*" (or: au plus tard le 30 avril, as suggested by Auryn)


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## OlivierG

Sorry, but "RSVP" means "Répondez S'il Vous Plait" (Please answer). It doesn't mean the party takes place at Duncan's house.


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## marie_h

My bad...


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## LMorland

Bon soir, fellow Forumites,

I just realized that I've lived in France for six years and I don't know how to express the term *R.S.V.P. *in French!

I don't find [this thread] helpful because a certain _marie,_ _dans sa cinquantaine_ and a native of France, didn't know what R.S.V.P. meant. 

So I don't feel that I can put those initials on an invitation and be universally understood.

Just as the French famously don't have a term for _déjà vu, est-il possible que le terme français R.S.V.P. n'existe que dans le monde Anglo-Saxon ?_


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## xtrasystole

I don't think _RSVP_ is used in France anymore, except in very formal invitations within high society. My great grand-parents used it, a long time ago... (I still have engraved invitations from them). Today in France, _RSVP_ is just a reminder of the extreme formality of bygone days, and most people don't even know what it means (while _SVP_ is quite common).


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## giannid

Maybe you can say something like: _Confirmez vôtre présence s'il vous plaît!_


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## timpeac

Prière de répondre ?


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## xtrasystole

LMorland said:


> I don't know how to express the term *R.S.V.P. *in French


You could say _'Merci de faire part de votre réponse si possible avant le [date]'_, or _'Merci de confirmer votre présence si possible avant le [date]'_.


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## Hakro

LMorland said:


> Just as the French famously don't have a term for _déjà vu, est-il possible que le terme français R.S.V.P. n'existe que dans le monde Anglo-Saxon ?_


R.S.V.P. is used in Finland, too, and most people understand it - at least the people who get this kind of invitations.


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## LMorland

xtrasystole said:


> You could say _'Merci de faire part de votre réponse si possible avant le [date]'_, or _'Merci de confirmer votre présence si possible avant le [date]'_.



Merci, xtrasystole, mais ouaou, c'est _formel !!! _ Pourquoi est-t-il que vous français n'ont pas besoin d'une méthode facile de demander une réponse à une invitation ?

Est-il parce que vous tous sont tellement bien élevés que vous n'avez pas besoin d'être commandés de _do the right thing ? _


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## xtrasystole

LMorland said:


> Est-il parce que vous tous sont tellement bien élevés


Umm... I wouldn't be any too sure about that!


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## Millou

You can see  R.S.V.P sometimes, but i would rather use "réponse souhaitée", less formal...


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## Agnès E.

I beg to strongly disagree with xtrasystole.

As Hakro pointed out, R.S.V.P. is quite widely used on written invitations, there is nothing exceptional to that... it's actually something that appears on every written invitation which is written the proper way!  

Don't forget that any written invitation _is_ a formal invitation, and that using the normal way to ask people to reply is just plainly obvious! Should you write something else, people who are used to get written invitations and understand RSVP would think that you just know the proper way to write an invitation, and that you made a mistake...  As for other people, who aren't used to get written invitations, they will understand the SVP part of RSVP  and guess the meaning from your details listed under.


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## ymc

RSVP just means "Répondez s'il vous plaît" and is not all that formal. You can even find it on some commercial invitations. But, true, there are more common phrases like "'Réponse souhaitée" which is short, clear and polite all together!


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## pripri68

RSVP peut avoir deux sens : 

Reservé s'il vous plait. Cela par exemple pour une soirée ou un week end on le retrouve sur les cartons d'invitations. 

Répondre s'il vous plait. Cela signifie que la personne attends une réponse rapide. 

++++


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## Agnès E.

*Réservé s'il-vous-plaît ?* Êtes-vous sûre ? Je ne comprends pas bien ce que cela signifie... J'ai reçu et envoyé quelques milliers d'invitations personnelles et professionnelles, et je n'ai jamais vu cela, même pour des inaugurations ou des manifestations où les places étaient limitées... cela signifiait toujours : _Répondez s'il-vous-plaît_. La réponse servant précisément à confirmer ou décliner la réservation.


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## LMorland

Agnès E. said:


> As for other people, who aren't used to get written invitations, they will understand the SVP part of RSVP  and guess the meaning from your details listed under.



Yes, Agnès, I would have thought so, but since _une française dans sa cinquantaine_ didn't know what it meant (_voici _the thread to which I referred earlier
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=55042 ) I was worried that it wouldn't be understood.

At any rate, to judge from this discussion, *R.S.V.P.* is apparently more commonly used in the U.S. and Finland than it is in France!


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## polaire

pripri68 said:


> RSVP peut avoir deux sens :
> 
> Reservé s'il vous plait. Cela par exemple pour une soirée ou un week end on le retrouve sur les cartons d'invitations.
> 
> Répondre s'il vous plait. Cela signifie que la personne attends une réponse rapide.
> 
> ++++





Agnès E. said:


> *Réservé s'il-vous-plaît ?* Êtes-vous sûre ? Je ne comprends pas bien ce que cela signifie... J'ai reçu et envoyé quelques milliers d'invitations personnelles et professionnelles, et je n'ai jamais vu cela, même pour des inaugurations ou des manifestations où les places étaient limitées... cela signifiait toujours : _Répondez s'il-vous-plaît_. La réponse servant précisément à confirmer ou décliner la réservation.



I was just looking at a French site for email invitations.  They use "réserver."

By the way, in the America some people think that email invitations ("evite" is one company) are rude.  Others think that they're convenient.  

But you would email invitations for a party, not a wedding, usually.


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## wildan1

LMorland said:


> At any rate, to judge from this discussion, *R.S.V.P.* is apparently more commonly used in the U.S. and Finland than it is in France!


 
Yes, it is commonly heard in AE and does not sound snobbish to use it--for anyone that sends out written invitations, anyway. 

Often used as a verb: 

_Did you get the invitation? Don't forget to RSVP!_


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## geve

LMorland said:


> Yes, Agnès, I would have thought so, but since _une française dans sa cinquantaine_ didn't know what it meant (_voici _the thread to which I referred earlier
> http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=55042 ) I was worried that it wouldn't be understood.


Une française dans sa cinquantaine peut avoir un moment d'absence sans qu'on en tire des conclusions sur les pratiques courantes de la langue française. Should we have a poll?   

_RSVP_ seems as natural to me as _Réponse souhaitée_ - though I might find the latter more polite. I find that abbreviations don't fit well on formal invitations. It could mean that you were too lazy to spell out the words, or that you can only afford a certain amount of letters 

But I am surprised to read that RSVP is used in non-French speaking countries! Does it have a meaning in your language or does it come straight from the French? In which case, do people know what words it stands for?


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## klodaway

I remember asking the questions to friends & co-workers in California. 
They knew what it was intended for, guessed the R had something to do with "reply" (how convenient Réponse/Reply !!) and they pretty much knew about the "silvouplé" part even if most of them were not able to spell it.


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## polaire

geve said:


> Une française dans sa cinquantaine peut avoir un moment d'absence sans qu'on en tire des conclusions sur les pratiques courantes de la langue française. Should we have a poll?
> 
> _RSVP_ seems as natural to me as _Réponse souhaitée_ - though I might find the latter more polite. I find that abbreviations don't fit well on formal invitations. It could mean that you were too lazy to spell out the words, or that you can only afford a certain amount of letters
> 
> But I am surprised to read that RSVP is used in non-French speaking countries! Does it have a meaning in your language or does it come straight from the French? *In which case, do people know what words it stands for?*


 
Educated people do.


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## geve

I think this well deserves an All languages thread.


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## LMorland

polaire said:


> Does it have a meaning in your language or does it come straight from the French? *In which case, do people know what words it stands for?*


 
Yes, it's true that educated people know that it comes from French. On the other hand, I would bet there is a minority who use it, or who understand its function ("to get back to the person who invited you") who couldn't attempt a translation. 

And as wildan1 pointed out, it's used as a verb, even conjugated, e.g., "Only 12 people have RSVP'd so far."

I'm curious whether it's in as common use in other anglophone countries as it is in the U.S. (and Finland!). 

Laura


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## worldwanderer

RSVP is widely used in England (not only in the US and Finland), and as a verb too, as other fore@s have pointed out. I can't speak for the majority, but most of the people I know know what it stands for.. 

PS: I have seen it on some (not many) official invitations in Romania too. And I've seen it also in Francophone westaf, but mainly on expats invites of many nationalities, one was coming from a Spanish person. Not sure if we could generalise that to all Spaniards though.. maybe someone could confirm..


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## polaire

LMorland said:


> Yes, it's true that educated people know that it comes from French. On the other hand, I would bet there is a minority who use it, or who understand its function ("to get back to the person who invited you") who couldn't attempt a translation.
> 
> And as wildan1 pointed out, it's used as a verb, even conjugated, e.g., "Only 12 people have RSVP'd so far."
> 
> I'm curious whether it's in as common use in other anglophone countries as it is in the U.S. (and Finland!).
> 
> Laura



Any educated person I know understands it comes from French, what it means, what the French words are and they perfectly understand the function and use it all the time, sometimes as a verb.

I can't post it, but I'm sure if you Google "RSVP" you'll see lots of English references.


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## LMorland

polaire said:


> Any educated person I know understands it comes from French, what it means, what the French words are and they perfectly understand the function and use it all the time, sometimes as a verb.



Yes, of course that's true.  But educated Americans also use phrases, such as _weltanschauung _and _mutatis mutandis, _that they are capable of translating, etc., etc.  However, these words or phrases are still "foreign" and are not in what one would consider common parlance.

My point was that there are _plenty_ of Americans who use the term R.S.V.P., _despite_ the fact that they can't translate it!  Yet they perfectly understand its function. 

I think that fact is more interesting than the fact that it's used by "educated" people, for it means that *R.S.V.P.* has become a part of the living fiber of the language.


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## cycloneviv

LMorland said:


> I'm curious whether it's in as common use in other anglophone countries as it is in the U.S. (and Finland!).
> 
> Laura



It's commonly used in Australia as well.


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## Little Star

Hi there,
I am writing an invitation card (which I bought) for my little one. After "I hope you can come" there is "R.S.V.P ................." which I don't understand what it is.
I'd be grateful if I have your help.


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## Lotuselisa

It stands for: Répondez s'il vous plait which means please reply


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## Little Star

Why didn't I think about it!!!! Thanks a lot Lotuselisa!


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