“Tant pis !” is a French expression meaning “too bad!”, “oh well!”, “never mind!” and “what a shame!” The literal translation is “so much worse”.
Tant Pis: Understanding This Common French Expression
Level: A2 (upper beginner)
Tant pis word origin
In the expression tant pis, tant translates to “so much” and pis translates to “worse”. The Modern French pis is related to pire, another French word for “worse”, which comes from pejus in Latin.
Example sentences using tant pis
As mentioned, tant pis has lots of translations. In our first three example sentences we used the translation “oh well!” That said, we could have just as easily used the translations “what a shame” and “too bad”.
In this first example, mangerai is the verb manger (to eat) conjugated in the French future tense. This sentence also uses the interesting negation ne…plus, which means “anymore”.
Il n’y a plus de biscuits. Tant pis, je mangerai une pomme !
There are no more cookies. Oh well! I’ll eat an apple.
This sentence uses the word bêtise which translates to “silly mistake”. The adjective bête means silly or stupid.
J’ai encore fait la même bêtise. Tant pis !
I made the same mistake again. Oh well!
Nous avons encore raté le bus. Tant pis !
We missed the bus again. Oh well!
The previous two example sentences were in the passé composé, a commonly used French past tense.
These final two examples use the expression tant pis pour toi (or vous), which can translate loosely to “that’s your problem” or “tough”.
Vous ne venez pas demain ? Tant pis pour vous ! C’est pas mon problème !
You’re not coming tomorrow? Tough! It’s not my problem!
Si tu ne bosses pas avant l’examen tant pis pour toi ! Tu risques de redoubler l’an prochain !
If you don’t study before your exam, that’s too bad! You risk staying back next year.
Word of the Day archive | Lessons by David Issokson
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