J’espère que tu vas bien aujourd’hui.

Because French usually drops the vowel in je before a word that starts with a vowel or a silent h. This is called elision.

• je + espère → j’espère

It works like this with many common words:

• j’aime
• j’habite
• j’écoute

So J’espère is just the normal shortened form of je espère.

A rough English-friendly pronunciation is:

zhes-PAIR kuh too vah byan oh-zhoor-dwee

A few notes:

• J’ sounds like the s in measure
• espère has a clear stressed-sounding -spère part
• que is usually pronounced like kuh
• tu is not exactly too, but too is a decent approximation
• bien has a nasal sound; it is not pronounced like English bee-en
• aujourd’hui is roughly oh-zhoor-dwee

If you want to sound more natural, try saying it smoothly as one unit rather than word by word.

Because in French, the usual way to ask or say that someone is doing well is with aller bien.

• Tu vas bien = You’re doing well / You’re okay
• Je vais bien = I’m doing well

Using être here is usually not the normal expression for checking how someone is.

• Tu es bien can mean something more like you’re comfortable, you’re fine where you are, or you feel good, depending on context.
• But for a standard How are you?/I hope you’re well idea, French normally uses aller bien.

Here, que means that.

So the structure is:

• J’espère = I hope
• que tu vas bien = that you are well / that you’re doing well

In English, we often leave out that:

• I hope (that) you’re well

French usually keeps que in this kind of sentence.

Tu is the informal singular you. You use it with:

• friends
• family
• children
• people you know well
• sometimes coworkers or classmates, depending on the situation

Vous is used for:

• formal situations
• people you do not know well
• showing politeness
• more than one person

So:

• J’espère que tu vas bien aujourd’hui. = informal, to one person
• J’espère que vous allez bien aujourd’hui. = formal, or to more than one person

A native English speaker often has to learn that French makes this distinction much more clearly than English does.

It is present tense.

• tu vas = you go / you are going

But with aller bien, the present tense is used to talk about how someone is doing right now:

• Tu vas bien = You’re doing well / You’re okay

So even though vas literally comes from to go, the whole expression aller bien means to be doing well.

Yes, it is very natural. It is common in:

• emails
• text messages
• letters
• conversations
• checking in on someone

It sounds like a warm, everyday way to say you hope someone is doing well today.

Examples of similar phrases:

• J’espère que tu vas bien.
• J’espère que vous allez bien.
• J’espère que tout va bien. = I hope everything is going well.

Adding aujourd’hui makes it a little more specific to today.

You can absolutely leave it out.

• J’espère que tu vas bien. = very common and natural
• J’espère que tu vas bien aujourd’hui. = emphasizes today

Adding aujourd’hui can suggest:

• you are checking on how the person feels today in particular
• maybe something happened recently
• maybe the person has had a difficult time and you are asking about today specifically

So both are correct; the version without aujourd’hui is more general.

French often puts time expressions like aujourd’hui in a flexible position, and putting it at the end is very natural.

• J’espère que tu vas bien aujourd’hui.
• Aujourd’hui, j’espère que tu vas bien.
• J’espère qu’aujourd’hui, tu vas bien.

The first version is the most straightforward and natural in everyday use.

Putting aujourd’hui at the end keeps the sentence simple and smooth.

In normal French, espérer is usually followed by the indicative, not the subjunctive.

So you say:

• J’espère que tu vas bien.
• J’espère qu’il viendra.

Not usually:

• J’espère que tu ailles bien
• J’espère qu’il vienne

This is a point that confuses many learners because hope that... can feel like uncertainty, but after espérer, French normally uses the indicative.

The accent grave (è) shows that the vowel is pronounced more like eh rather than a closed ay sound.

So:

• espère has è
• it helps show the pronunciation of that syllable

This is also part of the verb pattern:

• j’espère
• tu espères
• il/elle espère

But:

• nous espérons
• vous espérez

So the accent changes in some forms of the verb.

You can understand it word for word, but it is better to think of it as a natural expression.

Word by word:

• J’ = I
• espère = hope
• que = that
• tu = you
• vas bien = are doing well
• aujourd’hui = today

A natural English rendering would be:

• I hope you’re well today.
• I hope you’re doing well today.

So the literal pieces help, but the real meaning comes from the expression aller bien.