Level B1 (Intermediate)
🎧 Audio by Marie Assel Cambier — native speaker & pro voice artist from France
The French Word of the Day is n’importe quoi. In everyday speech it’s the go-to phrase for saying “that’s nonsense!” — and more.
✅ Meaning
✅ Pronunciation
✅ Example sentences
✅ Related Words & Expressions
✅ Related lessons
📘 N’importe quoi meaning
In French, n’importe quoi literally means “no matter what,” but in everyday speech it’s used in three main ways: to criticize someone acting foolishly or incorrectly, to dismiss something as “nonsense,” and as an exclamation meaning “whatever!” (See examples below.)
🎧 N’importe quoi pronunciation
N’importe quoi is pronounced /n‿ɛ̃pɔʁt kwa/ and sounds like nahm-port kwah, with the nasal “ɛ̃” and a clear “kwah” at the end.
📝 French and English examples
N’importe quoi – nonsense
In French, the expressions raconter n’importe quoi and dire n’importe quoi are both used to describe someone who is talking nonsense or saying things that don’t make sense.
Il ne faut pas écouter Géralde. Il raconte n’importe quoi !
Don’t listen to Géralde. He’s full of it (talking nonsense, BS).
This sentence was tricky to translate. “Il fait n’importe quoi” literally means “he does anything,” but in context it’s closer to “he has no idea what he’s doing.”
Claude ne sait pas faire du ski. Il fait n’importe quoi sur la montagne !
Claude doesn’t know how to ski. He has no idea what he’s doing on the mountain.
In this example, n’importe quoi is used as an exclamation meaning “whatever!”
Tu n’as même pas ecouté ce que je viens de dire, chérie ! – N’importe quoi!
You didn’t even listen to what I just said, dear. – Whatever!
In this final example, “n’importe quoi” means “anything.” The sentence is meant ironically and is written in the conditional tense.
N’importe quoi serait plus intéressant que cette leçon !
Anything would be more interesting than this lesson!
📘 Recommended resource
Camille explains everyday expressions like n’importe quoi in her À Moi Paris audio course, with real dialogues that show how people actually use them.
👉 Check it out here »
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🔗 Related words & Expressions
- C’est n’importe quoi — “That’s nonsense” / “That’s ridiculous”
- Faire n’importe quoi — “To do anything / to mess things up”
- Dire n’importe quoi — “To say nonsense / to talk rubbish”
- Raconter n’importe quoi — “To tell nonsense / to make things up”
- N’importe qui — “Anyone”
- N’importe quand — “Anytime”
- N’importe où — “Anywhere”
- N’importe comment — “Anyhow / carelessly”
👉 See my full list of French expressions with “n’importe” here.
🚀 Continue building your French vocabulary!
Now that you’ve mastered “n’importe quoi,” take a look at my lesson on raconter des salades — the playful French expression for telling tall tales.
Liked this lesson? 👉 Continue with my French Word of the Day series and learn new words every day.
