Fais attention en coupant le pain, tu peux te faire mal.

Be careful when cutting the bread, you can hurt yourself.

Breakdown of Fais attention en coupant le pain, tu peux te faire mal.

• tu: you
• le pain: the bread
• te: yourself
• pouvoir: to be able to
• faire attention: to pay attention
• en: while
• couper: to turn off
• se faire mal: to hurt oneself

Questions & Answers about Fais attention en coupant le pain, tu peux te faire mal.

Why is it Fais attention and not Fait attention?

Because fais is the correct imperative form of faire for tu (second person singular).

• Je fais
• Tu fais
• Il/elle fait

In the imperative, French uses the same form as the present tense tu form (without the subject pronoun):

• (Tu) fais → Fais ! (Do! / Make!)
• Fais attention ! = Pay attention! / Be careful!

Fait is only used with il/elle/on in the present tense (or as the past participle fait), never for the imperative with tu.

Is Fais attention more like “be careful” or “pay attention”? Are there other common ways to say this?

Fais attention can mean both “be careful” and “pay attention,” depending on context. Here it clearly means “be careful” (you’re using a knife).

Some alternatives and their nuances:

• Sois prudent(e) – “Be careful / Be cautious.”
  More formal / neutral, a bit less colloquial.

• Fais gaffe – “Watch out” / “Careful!”
  Very informal, colloquial.

• Attention ! – “Careful!” / “Watch out!”
  Very short warning, often shouted.

In everyday speech to someone you know well, Fais attention is the most standard, natural choice here.

What does the en in en coupant le pain do? Can I just say coupant le pain?

The en creates what’s called the gérondif (gerund construction).

• en + present participle → expresses “while doing / when doing / by doing”.

So en coupant le pain means roughly “while cutting the bread / when you cut the bread / as you cut the bread.”

Without en, coupant le pain is technically possible but much less common and feels more literary or descriptive. In everyday French, when you want to say “while doing something,” you almost always use:

• en + -ant form → en coupant, en mangeant, en parlant, etc.

So here, en is necessary to sound natural in normal spoken French.

Could I say quand tu coupes le pain instead of en coupant le pain? Is there any difference?

Yes, you could say:

• Fais attention quand tu coupes le pain, tu peux te faire mal.

The meaning is very similar.

Nuance:

• en coupant le pain
  Focuses on the action in progress: “while (you are) cutting the bread.”
  It also slightly suggests a cause: cutting the bread is the situation in which you might get hurt.

• quand tu coupes le pain
  More like a general “when(ever) you cut bread”.

Both are correct here; en coupant le pain is a bit more compact and natural in this warning context.

What exactly is coupant grammatically? Is it like the English “-ing” form?

Coupant is the present participle of couper.

• Verb: couper (to cut)
• Present participle: coupant

With en → en coupant = a gérondif, which corresponds roughly to English “while cutting / when cutting”.

Similarities to English “-ing”:

• Both can describe an action in progress: en mangeant → “while eating.”
• Both can express cause or circumstance: “By doing this…”

Differences:

• French present participles/gérondifs are used much less often than English “-ing” forms.
• You can’t freely use -ant forms as nouns or adjectives the way English uses -ing (“running,” “the building,” etc.) except in certain fixed or specific cases.

So you can think of en coupant ≈ “(while) cutting,” but remember it’s more restricted in use than English “-ing.”

Why is it tu peux te faire mal and not something like tu peux faire mal à toi?

French uses a reflexive construction instead of à toi here.

• se faire mal = “to hurt oneself”

The reflexive pronoun se changes with the subject:

• Je me fais mal – I hurt myself.
• Tu te fais mal – You hurt yourself.
• Il/elle se fait mal – He/she hurts themself.
• etc.

In your sentence:

• tu peux te faire mal
  te is the reflexive pronoun for tu, and it goes before the infinitive faire (because te is logically the object of faire mal).

Tu peux faire mal à toi is ungrammatical and unnatural; French does not use à toi in this structure. You really need the reflexive: se faire mal.

Why is the pronoun te placed before faire and not somewhere else, like tu peux faire te mal?

With a conjugated verb + infinitive, object/reflexive pronouns go before the infinitive when they belong to the infinitive’s action.

Pattern:

• conjugated verb + pronoun + infinitive

Examples:

• Je vais te voir. – I’m going to see you.
• Il veut nous aider. – He wants to help us.
• Tu peux te faire mal. – You can hurt yourself.

So:

• tu peux te faire mal ✅
• tu peux faire te mal ❌ (ungrammatical)

Here, peux is just a modal (“can”), and the real action is faire mal. The pronoun te attaches to faire as its object and therefore stands right before it.

What is the difference between se faire mal and se blesser?

Both can translate as “to hurt oneself,” but there are nuances:

• se faire mal
  General: “to hurt oneself,” often without specifying how serious.
  Very common in everyday speech, especially for minor injuries.

  • Je me suis fait mal à la main. – I hurt my hand.
  • Attention, tu vas te faire mal ! – Careful, you’re going to hurt yourself!

• se blesser
  More like “to injure oneself,” usually sounds more serious or more physical.
  Often used for sports injuries or clear physical damage.

  • Il s’est blessé au genou en jouant au foot. – He injured his knee playing football.

In your sentence, tu peux te faire mal is the most natural; tu peux te blesser is also possible but sounds a bit more like “you could injure yourself” (slightly stronger).

Why is it te faire mal and not te faire du mal? Don’t both exist?

Yes, both exist, but they’re not used the same way:

• se faire mal
  Usually physical pain, often specific and often minor:

  • Je me suis fait mal au doigt. – I hurt my finger.

• se faire du mal
  More general “to do oneself harm,” which can be physical or emotional, and often suggests something more serious / prolonged:

  • Tu te fais du mal en pensant toujours à ça. – You’re hurting yourself by always thinking about that. (emotional)
  • Arrête, tu vas te faire du mal. – Stop, you’re going to really hurt yourself. (could be physical or general harm)

In the context of cutting bread and possibly cutting yourself, the usual everyday warning is te faire mal, not te faire du mal.

What exactly is mal here? Is it a noun, an adjective, or an adverb?

In se faire mal, mal functions as a noun meaning “pain” or “harm,” but the whole expression is more or less fixed.

You can see this more clearly in extended versions:

• se faire mal au bras – to hurt one’s arm
• avoir mal à la tête – to have a headache (literally: to have pain at the head)

So:

• faire mal (à quelqu’un) = to cause pain (to someone)
  
  • Ça me fait mal. – That hurts (me).

Even though mal can also be an adverb (“badly”) or appear in other structures, in se faire mal it’s best to learn it as part of a set expression meaning “to hurt (oneself).”

Is the comma between the two parts necessary? Could it be two separate sentences?

Yes, it could be written as two sentences:

• Fais attention en coupant le pain. Tu peux te faire mal.

Using a comma is very common in everyday writing and especially in dialogue, where both parts feel closely linked and said in one breath.

Logically, the second part explains or motivates the first:

• Be careful (when cutting the bread), because you might hurt yourself.

So:

• Comma: common and natural in informal writing.
• Full stop: also correct, a bit more clearly separated.

How would I say this politely to more than one person?

Use the vous form for both the imperative and the reflexive:

• Faites attention en coupant le pain, vous pouvez vous faire mal.

Changes:

• Fais → Faites (imperative for vous)
• tu peux → vous pouvez
• te faire mal → vous faire mal

This can be either formal singular (one person you address with vous) or plural (several people).