You can read a French newspaper and still lose the thread of a Québec podcast or a group of teenagers in Lyon. The words are mostly the same; the sound is not. Spoken French swallows vowels (je suis becomes chuis), welds words together (les amis is one sound, lézami), drops whole syllables (il y a becomes y'a) and borrows freely from slang and from English. None of this is sloppy: it follows regular patterns, and once you know them you can decode what you hear. The goal of this lesson is mainly recognition. You should understand T'es où? Chuis au dep (Where are you? I'm at the corner store, Québec) and know which liaison is compulsory, but you will rarely write slang yourself, except in dialogue, a text message or a comic strip, where it makes a character sound real. A learner who uses slang slightly wrong sounds odd much faster than one who uses none, so when you do speak informally, copy what the people around you say in that place: c'est le fun in Ottawa, c'est sympa in Paris.
Linking and shortening: liaison and spoken contractions
Many French words end in a consonant you do not pronounce: les, nous, petit, grand. Before a word starting with a vowel sound, that consonant is sometimes pronounced and carried over to the next word. This is liaison. The letter does not always keep its own sound: s and x sound like z (deux‿amis), d sounds like t (un grand‿homme), and f sounds like v in a few set phrases, mainly neuf‿heures and neuf‿ans. Some liaisons are compulsory, some are forbidden, and many are optional; the optional ones are made more often in formal speech, which makes liaison itself a register marker.
| Type | Where | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Obligatoire (always made) | determiner + noun or adjective | les‿amis, un‿ancien élève, mon‿école, deux‿heures |
| subject pronoun + verb, and verb + pronoun in inversion | nous‿avons, ils‿ont, on‿a; vont‿-ils, prends‿-en | |
| adjective placed before a noun | un petit‿ami, un grand‿homme, de bons‿amis | |
| after short prepositions, and in fixed expressions | chez‿eux, en‿Ontario, dans‿une heure; petit‿à petit, tout‿à coup, les États‿-Unis | |
| Interdite (never made) | after et | un garçon et / une fille |
| after a singular noun | un étudiant / intelligent (no t sound) | |
| before an aspirated h and before onze, huit, oui | les / héros, les / haricots, en / haut, les / onze joueurs | |
| after an inverted subject pronoun | Sont-ils / arrivés? Ont-elles / entendu? | |
| Facultative (optional) | after a plural noun, after a verb, after pas | des amis‿anglais, je suis‿allé, pas‿encore: made more often in careful speech, often dropped in conversation |
| Written | Spoken (familier) | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| tu es | t'es | T'es où? | Where are you? |
| je suis | chuis | Chuis fatigué. | I'm tired. |
| je ne sais pas | j'sais pas, chais pas | Chais pas quoi faire. | Dunno what to do. |
| petit | p'tit | Mon p'tit frère arrive. | My little brother is coming. |
| il y a | y'a | Y'a personne. | There's nobody (here). |
| il faut | faut | Faut y aller. | We've got to go. |
| vous êtes | z'êtes | Z'êtes sûrs? | Are you sure? (vous dropped, its liaison z kept) |
| tu sais | t'sais (France), tsé (Québec) | Tsé, c'est pas facile. | You know, it's not easy. |
| je vais | m'as (Québec) | M'as te le dire. | I'm gonna tell you. |
Verlan: slang said backwards
Verlan is a slang of France that swaps the syllables of a word; the name itself is l'envers (the reverse) turned around, vers-l'en. It grew in the suburbs of Paris and spread through music and film, especially after Renaud's 1977 song Laisse béton (verlan for laisse tomber, drop it). Some verlan words have become ordinary familiar French in France and appear in dictionaries; in Québec, verlan is heard much less often. Recognise these well-established examples:
| Verlan | From | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| une meuf | femme | a woman, a girlfriend |
| relou | lourd | annoying, tiresome |
| chelou | louche | weird, shady |
| ouf | fou | crazy; c'est ouf = it's amazing |
| une teuf | fête | a party |
| laisse béton | laisse tomber | forget it, drop it |
Québec and France: informal words and anglicisms
| English | Familiar Québec | Familiar France | Courant (understood everywhere) |
|---|---|---|---|
| a car | un char | une bagnole | une voiture |
| my girlfriend / my boyfriend | ma blonde / mon chum | ma copine, ma meuf / mon copain, mon mec | ma copine / mon copain |
| a friend | un chum | un pote | un ami |
| it's fun | c'est le fun | c'est sympa | c'est amusant |
| to chat | jaser | papoter | bavarder, discuter |
| to tease, to kid | niaiser | charrier | taquiner |
| it's freezing | il fait frette | ça caille | il fait très froid |
| not at all | pantoute | pas du tout | pas du tout |
- Standard Québec French often keeps a French word where France borrows: le stationnement (parking), un courriel (email), la fin de semaine (weekend), magasiner (to shop).
- Familiar Québec speech borrows English verbs and phrases: checker (to check), canceller (to cancel), c'est le fun.
- Québec French is also exposed to calques, English structures translated word for word: prendre une marche, appliquer sur un poste, faire du sens.
- France borrows English nouns openly in everyday speech and in much of the media: le parking, le week-end, un mail, faire du shopping.
- France also uses false anglicisms, English-looking words that English does not use that way: le footing (jogging), le pressing (the dry cleaner's), le relooking (a makeover).
- So neither side is purer than the other: they borrow different things.
| Calque (avoid in formal writing) | Standard French | English |
|---|---|---|
| appliquer sur un poste | postuler à un poste, poser sa candidature | to apply for a position |
| prendre une marche | faire une promenade, aller marcher | to take a walk |
| ça fait du sens | ça a du sens, c'est logique | that makes sense |
| être en charge de | être responsable de | to be in charge of |
| en autant que | pourvu que, dans la mesure où | as long as |
Idioms you will hear every day
| Expression | Literally | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| avoir une faim de loup | to have a wolf's hunger | to be starving |
| faire d'une pierre deux coups | to make two hits with one stone | to kill two birds with one stone |
| Mon œil! | My eye! | Yeah, right! I don't believe you (familiar; often with a finger under the eye) |
| chercher des poux à quelqu'un | to look for lice on someone | to pick a fight with someone over nothing |
| avoir du pain sur la planche | to have bread on the board | to have a lot of work ahead |
| mettre son grain de sel | to put in one's grain of salt | to butt in with an unasked-for opinion |
| ne pas être sorti de l'auberge | not to be out of the inn | not to be out of the woods yet |
| Attache ta tuque! (Québec) | Tie your toque on! | Hold on tight! Get ready, it's going to be intense. |
| avoir son voyage (Québec) | to have one's trip | to be fed up, or to be flabbergasted: J'ai mon voyage! |
- Les chaussettes de l'archiduchesse sont-elles sèches, archi-sèches? → Are the archduchess's socks dry, extra-dry? (ch against s)
- Un chasseur sachant chasser doit savoir chasser sans son chien. → A hunter who knows how to hunt must be able to hunt without his dog. (ch against s)
- Ton thé t'a-t-il ôté ta toux? → Did your tea get rid of your cough? (a run of t sounds, including the -t- of inversion)
- Si six scies scient six cyprès, six cent six scies scient six cent six cyprès. → If six saws saw six cypresses, six hundred and six saws saw six hundred and six cypresses. (s sounds; the x of six is silent before a consonant)