Bsrgvty

"So basically, this is what you're talking about, j'ai bon ?"

Is this phrase used when you want to know for sure if you've understood the situation correctly? Is some word dropped after bon?

This popular spoken French expression is asking if what has just been done/said is correct or not.

It comes from school teacher's usage to write Bon (for bonne réponse, good answer) in front of a pupil's correct answer and Faux otherwise.

It is sometimes used jocularly after an obviously incorrect statement.

The question works as is so is not missing anything but can be expanded to that equally common one:

J'ai bon ou j'ai faux ?

An alternative version of j'ai bon can also be:

J'ai juste ?

Despite what other replies state, j'ai bon should not be considered as grammatically incorrect.

Here bon is neither an adverb, an adjective or an attribute (je suis bon) but is used as an invariable substantive. This substantive is the direct object complement (COD) which represent the score, the mark that has been or would be obtained.

The sentence answers to the question:

Tu as quoi ?.

It can be compared to:

J'ai une bonne note.

J'ai dix-huit.

J'ai vingt sur vingt.

J'ai A.

J'ai TB.

J'ai la moyenne.

"J'ai bon ?" means "Am I right ?". Some students when they are under stress in an exam ask the teacher "J'ai bon ?" or "J'ai bon là ?" to know if they have the good answer.

To be honest, "J'ai bon" is not used that often in France in your context. I don't know about Canadian French since there are some differences between the two (like British vs American English).

Now, let's explain. You use "J'ai bon" as asking for confirmation which is grammatically correct. It can also be used as an exclamation, like if you were right in a test "Cool, j'ai bon !".

But as I said, it is barely used. More common alternatives would be :

• "C'est (bien) ça ?" with "bien" optional, it makes no real difference to include it or not. To use your example, it would be "So basically, this is what you're talking about, c'est bien ça ?"


• Another alternative would be "Pas vrai ?". Note that it is more familiar.

There are already several good answers here. But for the sake of completeness, I’d like to add that this form is colloquially used and accepted in Belgium:

• as answer when asked about your comfort, to mean that you are ok: “Tu as chaud ? Non, j’ai bon” (source: article about Belgian French in Le Soir)


• to say that you like doing something. It is the followed with “à”: “j’ai bon à boire de la bière” (source: blog on Belgian French)


• as oral form by pupils (source: same as above), to ask_/say they ere right, as already explained in the other answers.

It is possible that it may be used in similar ways in other regional forms.

It is worth to mention that although it is used colloquially in some countries and regions, the form “j’ai bon” is grammatically incorrect: “bon” is an adjective that is supposed to qualify something that would be missing, and “ai” prevents it from qualifying the subject.

The correct form would require a be-verb, e.g. “je suis bon”, which has a different meaning (see also the Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales for additional usages of “bon”).

Dans le monde scolaire « j'ai bon » signifie « j'ai la réponse correcte » (dans une classe d'élèves qui font un exercice par exemple). Mais ce n'est pas une manière correcte de parler/écrire.

In the school world, "j'ai bon" means "I have the correct anwser". In the social world near Liège (Belgium), "j'ai bon" means "I feel so good, so happy" (after a good drink in the summer).

People from Liège are serious CASTARDS. But it is another story.

I'm no language expert, but in French Canadian, I have heard numerous times the usage of "J'ai bon" in this context :

J'ai bon de l'aider, mais ça ne servira à rien.

Meaning "Even if I would help him, it would be no use"