Tous les jours is French for “every day,” literally “all the days,” and it is always written with an s on every word: tous les jours, never “tous les jour.” Below we explain the grammar behind that spelling, how to pronounce the phrase, where it comes from, and how to use it in real sentences. We also cover why a Korean bakery chain borrowed it as a brand name.
Last updated: October 29, 2026
What tous les jours means
Tous les jours means “every day” or “daily.” It describes something that happens on each day without exception, or at least as a firm habit. A French speaker who says Je bois un café tous les jours means “I drink a coffee every day,” in exactly the way an English speaker would say it, with no special emphasis or poetic flavour.
The literal translation is “all the days.” Tous means “all,” les is the plural form of “the,” and jours means “days.” French expresses regular frequency this way, as “all the [unit of time],” where English prefers “every [unit of time].” Once we see that pattern, a whole family of expressions becomes easy to read: toutes les semaines (every week), tous les ans (every year), toutes les heures (every hour).
The phrase is neutral in register. It appears in casual conversation, in news reporting, in children’s books and in legal or administrative French, so learners can use it anywhere without sounding too stiff or too slangy.
Correct spelling: why it is never “tous les jour”
The most common search mistake around this phrase is “tous les jour,” without the final s. We understand why people write it: the s at the end of jours is silent, so nothing in the spoken phrase signals that it is there. In written French, though, it is required, and leaving it off is a clear spelling error.
How tous, les and jours agree
French nouns and the words that go with them must agree in gender and number. In this phrase, each part does its own job, and all three point to the plural:
- Les is the plural definite article. Once we use les, the noun that follows must be plural.
- Jours is the plural of the masculine noun jour (day), formed in the regular way by adding s.
- Tous is the masculine plural form of tout (all). Because jours is masculine plural, tout has to become tous.
The adjective tout has four forms, and choosing the right one depends entirely on the noun it describes:
| Form | Gender and number | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| tout | masculine singular | tout le jour | all day long (literary) |
| toute | feminine singular | toute la journée | all day long |
| tous | masculine plural | tous les jours | every day |
| toutes | feminine plural | toutes les semaines | every week |
Notice that the masculine plural is tous, not “touts.” This is one of the few irregular plurals in French: the final t of tout drops away and is replaced by s. Writing “touts les jours” is a mistake that even some native speakers make in fast typing.
Common misspellings and how to fix them
These are the errors we see most often in search queries, social posts and learner essays:
| Incorrect | Correct | What went wrong |
|---|---|---|
| tous les jour | tous les jours | jour must be plural after les |
| tout les jours | tous les jours | tout must be plural to match jours |
| touts les jours | tous les jours | the plural of tout is irregular: tous |
| tous le jours | tous les jours | le is singular; plural nouns need les |
| tous les jours’s | tous les jours | French has no possessive ‘s |
| toujours (for “every day”) | tous les jours | toujours means “always,” a different word |
Getting the ins and outs of French plural agreement right takes practice, but this particular phrase follows the rules perfectly. If we remember that every word in it is plural, the spelling takes care of itself.
Often confused with
Toujours (one word) means “always” or “still.” Tous les jours (three words) means “every day.” They sound similar but are not interchangeable.
How to pronounce tous les jours
In simple respelling, tous les jours sounds like too lay ZHOOR. In IPA it is written /tu le ʒuʁ/.
Breaking that down syllable by syllable makes it easier to say aloud:
- tous = “too.” The s is silent here because tous is working as a determiner in front of a noun.
- les = “lay.” The s is silent because the next word begins with a consonant, so there is no liaison.
- jours = “zhoor.” The j is the soft sound in the middle of English “measure,” not the hard j of “jump.” The s is silent.
The French r at the end is made at the back of the throat, close to a light gargle, and it is softer than the English r. English speakers who cannot produce it yet will still be understood with “zhoor,” but rolling the tongue the Spanish way sounds noticeably off to French ears.
French stress falls lightly on the final syllable of a phrase, so jours gets a touch more weight than tous or les. It is a gentle rise, nothing like the strong stress we put on English words.
When tous is pronounced “toos”
One detail trips up intermediate learners. When tous is used as a pronoun, standing on its own and meaning “all of them,” its final s is pronounced: Ils sont tous là (they are all here) sounds like “eel sohn TOOS la.” In tous les jours, though, tous sits in front of a noun, so the s stays silent. Saying “toos lay zhoor” is a common learner mistake that native speakers notice immediately.
Usage tip
Think of tous les jours as one smooth unit, “toolayzhoor,” with no pause between the words. Saying it in one breath sounds far more natural than three separate words.
Where the phrase comes from
Both main words in tous les jours trace back to Latin, and the history explains some quirks of modern French.
Jour comes from Late Latin diurnum, meaning “a day” or “a day’s allowance,” which was the neuter form of the adjective diurnus (daily). Over time, diurnum pushed aside the older Latin word for day, dies, in the language that became French, and it developed into Old French jorn and jor, then modern jour. The same root gives French journal (originally a daily record) and journée (the span of a day). English borrowed from this family too: “journal” and “journey,” which originally meant a day’s travel or a day’s work, both come from it.
Tout comes from Latin totus, meaning “whole” or “entire,” through a spoken Latin form often reconstructed as tottus. The English word “total” shares the same Latin ancestor.
The most useful bit of history concerns the word learners most often confuse with our phrase. Toujours (“always”) began as the Old French phrase toz jorz, literally “all days.” Over centuries those two words fused into a single adverb with a broader meaning, while the full phrase with the article, tous les jours, kept the specific sense of “every day.” The two expressions are, in effect, siblings that grew apart.
How to use tous les jours in a sentence
Tous les jours works as an adverbial phrase, telling us how often something happens. It is flexible in placement, which makes it a comfortable phrase for beginners to start using early.
Where it goes in the sentence
Most often, tous les jours sits at the end of the clause, after the verb and its object:
- Elle lit le journal tous les jours. (She reads the newspaper every day.)
It can also come at the start for emphasis, usually followed by a comma:
- Tous les jours, il prend le métro à huit heures. (Every day, he takes the metro at eight.)
In compound tenses such as the passé composé, it normally follows the past participle rather than slipping between the auxiliary and the participle:
- J’ai couru tous les jours pendant un mois. (I ran every day for a month.)
Placing it as J’ai tous les jours couru is grammatical in careful written style but sounds unusual in speech, so we recommend the end position as the default.
Negation
With a negative, tous les jours often takes on the meaning “not every day” or “not often”:
- Je ne fais pas du sport tous les jours. (I don’t exercise every day.)
The idiomatic construction Ce n’est pas tous les jours que… means “It’s not every day that…” and marks something as special or rare:
- Ce n’est pas tous les jours qu’on fête ses quarante ans ! (It’s not every day you turn forty!)
12 real examples with translations
We wrote these sentences to show the phrase across everyday situations, from routine habits to idioms. Each French sentence is followed by a natural English translation rather than a word-for-word one.
- Je promène le chien tous les jours. I walk the dog every day.
- Tous les jours, ma grand-mère appelle à midi. Every day, my grandmother calls at noon.
- Il pleut presque tous les jours en novembre. It rains almost every day in November.
- On mange du pain frais tous les jours. We eat fresh bread every day.
- Tu travailles tous les jours, même le dimanche ? You work every day, even on Sundays?
- Les enfants vont à l’école tous les jours sauf le mercredi. The children go to school every day except Wednesday.
- J’apprends dix mots de vocabulaire tous les jours. I learn ten vocabulary words every day.
- Ce n’est pas tous les jours qu’on voit un arc-en-ciel double. It’s not every day you see a double rainbow.
- Elle porte cette veste tous les jours depuis septembre. She has worn that jacket every day since September.
- Le boulanger ouvre à six heures tous les jours. The baker opens at six every day.
- Nous nous sommes parlé tous les jours pendant les vacances. We talked to each other every day during the holidays.
- Il répète la même blague tous les jours que Dieu fait. He tells the same joke every single day.
The last example uses an idiom worth knowing. Tous les jours que Dieu fait (literally “every day that God makes”) is an emphatic, slightly old-fashioned way to say “every single day,” often with a note of weariness or exasperation. It is common in spoken French and in fiction, and it carries no strongly religious tone in modern use.
Tous les jours vs chaque jour, toujours and toute la journée
French has several phrases that circle around the idea of “day” or “always,” and choosing the right one matters. This comparison table covers the four that learners mix up most often.
| French | English | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| tous les jours | every day | Regular, daily frequency; the everyday default |
| chaque jour | each day, every day | Slightly more formal; stresses each individual day |
| toujours | always, still | Constancy over time, not daily frequency |
| toute la journée | all day long | Duration within one day, from morning to night |
Tous les jours or chaque jour?
These two overlap heavily, and in many sentences either works. The difference is one of emphasis. Tous les jours presents the days as a group and states a habit. Chaque jour singles out each day one at a time, which suits sentences about gradual change or progress:
- Je me lève à sept heures tous les jours. (I get up at seven every day: a plain habit.)
- Chaque jour, il fait un peu plus froid. (Each day, it gets a little colder: a change measured day by day.)
Chaque jour also leans slightly more formal and literary, so it turns up more in speeches, written reports and motivational slogans.
Tous les jours or toujours?
This is the pair that causes real misunderstandings. Toujours means “always” or “still,” with no reference to days:
- Il est toujours en retard. (He is always late.)
- Tu habites toujours à Lyon ? (Do you still live in Lyon?)
Swapping in tous les jours would change the meaning. Il est en retard tous les jours says he is late every day, which is a habit report, while Il est toujours en retard is a general statement about his character.
Tous les jours or toute la journée?
Toute la journée describes duration within one day: “the whole day,” “all day long.” Tous les jours describes repetition across many days:
- J’ai travaillé toute la journée. (I worked all day.)
- Je travaille tous les jours. (I work every day.)
Note the switch from jour to journée. French tends to use jour for days as units you can count and journée when the focus is on the content or span of a day, which is why we say toute la journée and not “tout le jour” in modern speech.
Related phrases built on the same pattern
Once the “all the + time unit” pattern is clear, it unlocks a set of frequency expressions. Some of them do not translate literally, which makes them worth learning as fixed phrases.
| French | Literal meaning | English equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| tous les deux jours | all the two days | every other day |
| tous les trois jours | all the three days | every three days |
| tous les huit jours | all the eight days | every week |
| tous les quinze jours | all the fifteen days | every two weeks, fortnightly |
| tous les matins | all the mornings | every morning |
| tous les soirs | all the evenings | every evening |
| toutes les semaines | all the weeks | every week |
| tous les mois | all the months | every month |
| tous les ans | all the years | every year |
The entries for eight and fifteen days surprise most English speakers. French traditionally counts weeks inclusively, so a week from Monday to the following Monday is “eight days” (huit jours) and two weeks is “fifteen days” (quinze jours). Saying tous les huit jours for “weekly” is perfectly natural, and une quinzaine (about fifteen) is the everyday French word for a fortnight.
A few neighbouring expressions use jour without the frequency pattern but come up often enough to be useful:
- de nos jours: nowadays, these days
- au jour le jour: day by day, living hand to mouth
- un de ces jours: one of these days
- du jour au lendemain: overnight, suddenly
- le plat du jour: the dish of the day, a restaurant special
For formal writing, French also has quotidiennement, a single adverb meaning “daily.” It is correct but heavy, the sort of word that suits a technical manual or an official notice. In conversation, tous les jours is almost always the better choice.
De tous les jours: the adjective form
When we add de in front, the phrase turns into an adjective meaning “everyday,” “ordinary” or “for daily use”:
- des vêtements de tous les jours (everyday clothes)
- la vie de tous les jours (everyday life)
- un repas de tous les jours (an ordinary weeknight meal)
This construction neatly mirrors a distinction that English writers often get wrong. In English, every day (two words) is an adverbial phrase, the true equivalent of tous les jours: “We bake bread every day.” Everyday (one word) is an adjective meaning “ordinary,” the equivalent of de tous les jours: “This is our everyday bread.”
French marks the difference with the little word de; English marks it with a space. A handy test for English: if we could replace the word with “each day,” we need two words. If we could replace it with “ordinary,” we need one. A slogan like “Freshly Baked Everyday” uses the one-word form where standard English calls for “every day,” which is a stylistic choice many brands make but not grammatically standard.
Why a Korean bakery is called Tous les Jours
Many people searching “tous les jours” are looking for the bakery rather than the grammar, and the two topics connect more closely than they might seem. TOUS les JOURS is a South Korean bakery and café franchise operated by CJ Foodville, part of the CJ Group. It opened its first store in South Korea in 1997, built a large network at home, and has since expanded abroad, including a substantial presence in the United States, where its US social accounts and local listings now rank prominently for the phrase.
What the name is meant to say
The brand chose a French phrase on purpose, and the choice reflects a pattern in South Korea’s bakery market. French baking carries a strong association with quality, craft and fresh bread, and several major Korean bakery chains use French-sounding names to signal that heritage. Paris Baguette, run by SPC Group, is the best-known rival and follows the same naming logic.
The literal meaning, “every day,” doubles as a promise: baked goods made fresh each day, for an everyday visit rather than a special occasion. The chain’s English tagline, “Freshly Baked Everyday,” spells that promise out for customers who do not read French. The brand’s typography, with TOUS and JOURS in capitals and les in lower case, is a design choice and not a spelling rule; in ordinary French text the phrase is written in lower case unless it starts a sentence.
How English speakers pronounce the brand
Among American customers, pronunciations range from a close French “too lay ZHOOR” to anglicised versions like “toos lez jors” or “too lay jors.” There is no official requirement to say it the French way, and staff will understand any of them. The French pronunciation is still the accurate one, and it is the version we recommend for anyone who wants to say the name correctly.
What the bakery sells
The menu blends French baking, Korean bakery traditions and café drinks, and the exact range varies by country and by store. In US locations, customers typically choose pastries and bread from open shelves using a tray and tongs, the self-service model common in Korean bakeries, then pay at the counter. Typical items include:
- Breads and pastries: soft milk breads, filled buns, croissants, savoury rolls and sweet baked goods, many of them Korean bakery staples that differ from what a traditional French boulangerie offers.
- Cakes: light sponge cakes with whipped cream and fresh fruit, a style closely associated with Korean bakeries, available as whole cakes for celebrations and as individual slices. Cake designs, including character and licensed themes, rotate over time.
- Drinks: espresso-based coffee, iced drinks, teas and blended fruit smoothies, with flavours such as mango appearing on many menus.
- Seasonal items: limited-time products that change with holidays and the time of year, from autumn flavours to festive cakes.
Because menus, prices and services change, we suggest checking the bakery’s own app or website, or calling the nearest location, for current items, online order options, pickup and delivery availability, and store accessibility details. Delivery coverage in particular depends on each store and its local partners, so what works near one customer may not be offered at a café across town.
From a language point of view, the bakery’s name is a small, cheerful example of how phrases travel. A plain French adverbial phrase became a Korean brand and then a household name in parts of the United States, often for people who have never studied French. Code-switching of this kind has close cousins in other languages, the same mix-and-match spirit that makes a Spanglish translator so popular with bilingual families.
Quick checklist for using tous les jours correctly
Before we finish, here is a short checklist that covers the mistakes we see most often:
- Spell every word as plural: tous les jours, with s on all three words.
- Use tous, not tout or touts: the masculine plural of tout is irregular.
- Keep the s sounds silent in speech: “too lay ZHOOR.”
- Do not swap in toujours when you mean “every day”; it means “always.”
- Use toute la journée for “all day long,” not tous les jours.
- Add de to make the adjective: la vie de tous les jours (everyday life).
If something still sounds off when we write in French, reading the sentence aloud to a native speaker, or using a tutor as a sounding board, catches errors that spell-checkers miss, especially silent-letter mistakes like “tous les jour.”
FAQ
What does tous les jours mean in English?
It means “every day” or “daily.” The literal translation is “all the days,” because French expresses regular frequency as “all the [time unit],” as in tous les ans (every year) and toutes les semaines (every week).
Is it “tous les jours” or “tous les jour”?
The correct spelling is tous les jours, with an s at the end of jours. The article les is plural, so the noun after it must be plural too. People often drop the s because it is silent in speech, but “tous les jour” is a spelling error.
How do you pronounce tous les jours?
Say “too lay ZHOOR,” IPA /tu le ʒuʁ/. All three final s letters are silent, the j sounds like the middle of “measure,” and the r is the soft French r made at the back of the throat.
What is the difference between toujours and tous les jours?
Toujours means “always” or “still” and has nothing to do with daily frequency. Tous les jours means “every day.” Historically, toujours grew out of the Old French phrase toz jorz (“all days”), but the two expressions now have separate meanings.
Is tous les jours formal or informal?
It is neutral and works in every register, from text messages to official documents. For a more formal tone, writers sometimes choose chaque jour or the adverb quotidiennement, but tous les jours is never wrong in polite company.
How do you say “every other day” in French?
Use tous les deux jours, literally “all the two days.” Similarly, tous les quinze jours means “every two weeks,” because French counts a fortnight as fifteen days.
What does the bakery name Tous les Jours mean?
The bakery’s name means “every day” in French. TOUS les JOURS is a South Korean bakery and café chain run by CJ Foodville, and the name signals freshly baked goods made daily, which its English slogan “Freshly Baked Everyday” spells out.
Is “everyday” or “every day” the right translation?
It depends on the job the phrase is doing. Tous les jours on its own is an adverb, so the English is “every day,” two words. De tous les jours is an adjective, so the English is “everyday,” one word, as in “everyday clothes.”
About this article
- Fact-checked by Maureen Talbot before publication.
- Published