Avant le repas, je dis : « Bon appétit ! »

Avant means before.
So Avant le repas means before the meal.

French often puts a time expression at the beginning of the sentence, just like English can:

• Before the meal, I say...
• In the morning, I drink coffee.
• After class, we go home.

You could also say:

• Je dis : « Bon appétit ! » avant le repas.

That is also correct, but the original sentence emphasizes when the action happens.

Le repas means the meal in a general or specific sense. In this sentence, it refers to the meal you are about to eat.

French often uses the definite article (le, la, les) in places where English might sound more natural with a general meaning:

• avant le repas = before the meal / before eating

If you said avant un repas, it would sound more like before a meal, any meal, one meal among others, which is less natural here.

Repas means meal in a general sense. It does not specify whether it is breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

By contrast:

• petit-déjeuner = breakfast
• déjeuner = lunch
• dîner = dinner

So repas is broader. In this sentence, le repas just means the meal.

Because dire means to say, while parler means to speak.

• je dis = I say
• je parle = I speak / I am speaking

Since the sentence gives the exact words someone says — Bon appétit ! — the verb dire is the right one.

Compare:

• Je dis bonjour. = I say hello.
• Je parle français. = I speak French.

Because je dis is the correct conjugation of the verb dire in the present tense.

Present tense of dire:

• je dis = I say
• tu dis = you say
• il/elle/on dit = he/she/one says
• nous disons
• vous dites
• ils/elles disent

So:

• je dis = correct
• je dit = incorrect

A common reason English speakers ask this is that il dit exists, so it is easy to confuse the forms.

It is pronounced approximately like:

• je → zhuh
• dis → dee

So je dis sounds roughly like zhuh dee.

A few notes:

• The j in je is the soft French sound heard in measure.
• The s in dis is usually not pronounced here.
• je is often said very lightly in normal speech.

A rough English approximation is:

bohn ah-pay-tee

More exactly:

• bon has a nasal vowel, so it is not a full English bon
• appétit is pronounced a-pe-ti
• the final t in appétit is pronounced

There is also usually a liaison between bon and appétit, so it sounds like:

bon-z-appétit

That z sound appears because the final n in bon links to the following vowel sound.

Literally, it means something like good appetite.

But in real usage, it means:

• Enjoy your meal
• Have a good meal

So this is a case where the literal translation is not the most natural English translation.

Yes, very commonly.

People say Bon appétit just before eating. It is a normal and polite expression in everyday French.

You can say it:

• to family
• to friends
• to guests
• sometimes even to strangers who are about to eat

It is one of the most common meal-related expressions in French.

The colon introduces the exact words being said.

So:

• je dis : « Bon appétit ! »

means:

• I say: “Bon appétit!”

In English, we also often use a colon before direct speech in some contexts, especially when introducing a quotation.

French often uses guillemets:

• « ... »

instead of English quotation marks:

• “ ... ”

So « Bon appétit ! » is simply the French way of marking quoted speech.

You may also notice spaces around French punctuation in formal writing, especially before !, ?, ;, and :.

Because it begins the quoted expression Bon appétit !

In French, capitalization rules are generally similar here to English: the first word of a quoted sentence or expression is capitalized.

If it appeared in the middle of a sentence without being treated as direct speech, you might sometimes see different punctuation choices, but here capitalization is completely normal.

The comma separates the introductory time phrase from the main clause:

• Avant le repas, = before the meal
• je dis... = I say...

English does the same thing very often:

• Before the meal, I say...

The comma makes the sentence easier to read.

Repas is masculine.

That is why the sentence uses:

• le repas

not:

• la repas ❌

A useful thing to remember is that repas is one of those nouns whose singular and plural are written the same:

• le repas = the meal
• les repas = the meals

Yes, but the meaning changes.

• je dis = I say
• on dit = one says / we say / people say

So:

• Avant le repas, je dis : « Bon appétit ! »
  = Before the meal, I say Bon appétit!

• Avant le repas, on dit : « Bon appétit ! »
  = Before the meal, people/we say Bon appétit!

If you are talking about a general custom, on dit is often very natural.

Yes. That is exactly what happens here:

• avant le repas = before the meal

When avant is followed by a noun, no extra word is needed.

But when it is followed by a verb, French usually uses de:

• avant le repas = before the meal
• avant de manger = before eating / before to eat

So English speakers should notice this pattern:

• avant + noun
• avant de + infinitive