What does “il te reste” mean in French?

To say what someone has left, French turns the sentence around. Il te reste une chance means “you have one chance left,” but word for word it’s “there remains to you one chance.” The thing left over is what remains, and the person comes in as me, te, lui, nous, vous, leur: il me reste dix euros, “I’ve got ten euros left.”

The il is impersonal, like the il in il pleut, so it never changes, even with a plural: il nous reste deux jours (“we have two days left”). To ask, say combien il te reste ? or qu’est-ce qui te reste ?. In this letter-guessing game a wrong letter costs a life: oh non, un P, then il te reste une chance, before a correct T saves the round.