A story in the Journal de Montréal tells of a restaurant owner who posted a complaint on Facebook. Her complaint was about a customer who’d brought lactose-free milk into the restaurant for her child to drink.

The owner argued that the customer should’ve ordered the milk in her restaurant instead of bringing it in from outside.

Long story short, her complaint on Facebook went viral because the Internet sided with the customer, not the restaurant owner. A marketing specialist commented on how the restaurant’s reputation will be affected:

À court terme, ça va fesser fort. […] C’est une petite entreprise, c’est sûr que ça va faire mal.
In short term, it’s going to hurt (lit., “to hit hard”). It’s a small business, it’s going to hurt for sure.

[«Un contenant de lait crée un tollé contre une restauratrice», Journal de Montréal, 21 août 2015]

Literally, fesser means to hit. It can be used in both its literal sense, or in a figurative sense meaning to hurt (one’s reputation, one’s ego, etc.).

This isn’t the first time we’re seeing fesser on OffQc.

In #285, we saw how a character called Stéphanie from the TV show La Galère was proud that her son had punched a sexual predator and eventually managed to get him arrested. As she takes care of her son’s hand, she asks him:

T’as fessé fort?
Do you hit [him] hard?

• t’as, informal contraction of tu as

In #415, we saw how a character called Olivier from the TV show Les Parent got into a fight with another boy. When Olivier explains to his parents why he got into the fight, he says he was protecting his little brother Zak and his friend:

Y’était en train d’écoeurer Zak pis son ami.
Y’allait fesser sur Zak!
He was picking on Zak and his friend.
He was gonna hit Zak!

• y’était, informal pronunciation of il était
• y’allait, informal pronunciation of il allait
• pis (sounds like pi), informal pronunciation of puis; means and here

In those last two examples, fesser is used literally. But in #547, we saw a figurative use: a radio show host wishes a happy 40th birthday to a listener and admits that turning 40 is hard to take:

40 ans, ça fesse.
[Turning] 40 hurts.

The Usito dictionary also gives a couple examples:

Fesser sur un clou avec un marteau.
To strike a nail with a hammer.

«J’ai remarqué que, quand Alexandre est fâché, il est violent; il donne des coups de poing, il fesse partout»
“I’ve noticed that, when Alexander is angry, he gets violent; he goes around punching, hitting everything.”

[Michel Gosselin, Le repos piégé, 1988]

We’ve seen before on OffQc that the three meals of the day in Québec are called:

• le déjeuner, breakfast
• le dîner, lunch
• le souper, supper

On the radio, though, here’s what the host said to us listeners:

C’est l’heure du lunch qui s’en vient bientôt.
Lunchtime’s coming up.

That’s lunch’s second name in Québec: le lunch.

A reader of OffQc liked this Québecois usage: la boîte à lunch, which she found in this newspaper article online. The article is called Suggestions pour la boîte à lunch, and contains suggestions of lunches kids can take to school. You can say un sac à lunch if it’s a bag.

There’s another meal that could be added to this list: le brunch. It’s a meal that occurs between breakfast + lunch.

In advertising especially, you might notice the typically Québécois terms are sometimes not used. Here’s what’s on the back cover of an Ikea catalogue that showed up in my mailbox:

Petit-déjeuner au lit… comme ça, sans raison.
Breakfast in bed… just because.

Rather than calling breakfast in bed déjeuner au lit like they did in this TVA article, the Ikea magazine uses petit-déjeuner au lit.

Here’s how the TVA article used déjeuner au lit:

Vous cherchez à gâter maman à l’occasion de la fête des mères? Pourquoi ne pas lui préparer un décadent déjeuner au lit pour débuter sa journée en beauté?
Want to spoil Mother on Mother’s Day? Why not make her a decadent breakfast in bed so she can get her day off to a great start?

How do you say things like to have breakfast, to have supper, etc.? You can use the verb forms of the words (dîner, souper…). In #451, we saw:

Vous avez pas encore soupé.
You haven’t had supper yet.

Ça vous dérange pas qu’ils soupent avec nous?
Is it okay if they stay for supper? have supper with us?

You can also say things like aller souper, aller dîner, aller bruncher, etc. In #991, we saw:

aller souper au restaurant
to go out for supper

Métro Pie-IX (Montréal)

Here are a few more colloquial usages pulled from comments on Facebook. The first two are more typical of younger to middle-aged speakers.

1. C’est weird.

That’s weird.

• Weird follows English pronunciation.

2. Pis là, je me suis dit whatever!

And then I thought ‘whatever’!

• Pis là sounds like pi là. Pis is an informal contraction of puis. Pis means and here, and là means then.
• Je me suis can contract informally to j’me su’.
• Dit sounds like dzi. When d appears before the i sound, it sounds like dz.

3. Je trouve ça vraiment tannant.

I think that’s really annoying.

• Je trouve can contract informally to j’trouve, which sounds like ch’trouve.

By the way, I heard some newcomers to the country pronounce métro Pie-IX (see the image above) incorrectly as pi-iks. In fact, the correct pronunciation is pi-neuf, pi-9. It’s named after le pape Pie-IX.

I took this photo in a pharmacy in Montréal. The reason I took it is for the vocabulary on the sign hanging from above.

The French word location doesn’t mean the same thing as the English word location.

The French word location means rental, for hire. Une voiture de location, for example, is a rental car.

You can use the French word emplacement in the sense of the English word location. Le nouvel emplacement de la pharmacie, for example, means the new location of the pharmacy.

Back to the sign, it’s a list of things we can rent in the pharmacy.

Une béquille is a crutch. Une marchette is a walker. Une chaise roulante is a wheelchair.

Chaise roulante is a Québécois usage. It exists alongside the masculine term fauteuil roulant, which means the same thing.

I found the interesting quote below in the Journal de Montréal (27 August 2015, p.5). It was said by a woman talking about how the water in her area has been dirty, smelly and undrinkable for the past five years:

C’est pas buvable! C’est même pas sentable! Tu entres dans ta douche et l’odeur te pogne au coeur.
It’s not drinkable! It’s not even “smellable”! You go in your shower and the smell is just sickening.

L’odeur te pogne au coeur… This literally means the smell grabs your heart (the informal verb pogner means to grab, catch, etc.), but we can understand it as meaning that the smell hits you in the gut and makes you want to be sick. Why? Because the water’s pas sentable, it stinks.

That’s the really interesting usage in this quote — pas sentable. If something’s not drinkable, c’est pas buvable. And if it’s pas sentable, then it’s… not smellable!

Pogner au coeur can also be used in the sense of evoking strong emotions. For example, you might say of a touching story: ça m’a pogné au coeur, it went straight to my heart.

Sometimes you’ll hear people say that, in Québécois French, the second-person singular tu (meaning you) gets added in anywhere and everywhere in sentences… without rhyme or reason!

On y va-tu?
T’as-tu vu ça?
Ça se peut-tu?
Shall we go?
Did you see that?
Is that possible?

But, as we’ve seen before, the tu they’re referring to isn’t the second-personal singular at all. It’s a yes-no question marker used in informal language.

On y va-[oui/non]?
T’as-[oui/non] vu ça?
Ça se peut-[oui/non]?

If you leave out the yes-no tu, the question still means the same thing:

On y va?
T’as vu ça?
Ça se peut?

But, rather than just making the voice rise at the end like in those last examples, the tu is often included when formulating yes-no questions — or at least in informal language, it is.

The answer to the title of this blog post is ça se peut-tu, with a t in peut, not an x. That’s because the tu in ça se peut-tu isn’t the second-person singular; it’s not the subject. The conjugation, then, aligns with ça (i.e., peut), not tu (i.e., not peux).

Why is this important?

The next time you hear someone say the Québécois add in the second-person singular tu just about anywhere they like as if it were salt, you’ll know it’s not true!

In this Huffington Post Québec article, a man talks about how he had to take care of his little sister when growing up because of the negligence of his parents. In his words, he used to feed her (lui faire à manger), check her homework (checker ses devoirs)… «je faisais la job d’un parent».

We’ve seen before how la job can be used informally to talk about employment, in the sense of un emploi. But la job can also be used in a broader non-employment sense, like here, when the man said he used to do la job d’un parent, the job of a parent.

You’ll also hear the verb checker fairly frequently in spoken language, like here in checker ses devoirs, to check her homework.

But getting back to job, what’s the difference between la job and le job, and are both used in Québec?

European usage knows only le job.

Québécois usage is a little more complex:

In conversations, you’ll hear job used spontaneously in the feminine. In writing, you’ll come across both. When the writer wants to remain faithful to normal, spoken language, the feminine form will be used; this might include, for example, Facebook posts and tweets. Otherwise, the masculine form might be preferred (it’s not a rule!), such as in advertising or the media. That said, it isn’t impossible to come across the feminine form in advertising or the media (see image below, from #714).

No matter what, though, job is always an informal usage, whether it’s masculine or feminine.

By the way, you can’t just change la job to le job to “convert” it to French (from France) usage. For example, the Québécois expression ça va faire la job means that’ll do the job, that’ll do the trick. You can’t just change this to ça va faire le job and expect that to be the European usage. That’s because this is a Québécois-specific expression using only the feminine form. (A possible equivalent not using la job is ça fera l’affaire.)

By “informal,” I mean a word or expression far more likely to be found in normal, spontaneous, everyday language — between friends and family, for example — than in high literature or business correspondence or news reports.

In many posts on OffQc, you’ve no doubt noticed that I very often say that such-and-such a word or expression is an informal usage. Maybe you’ve even begun to wonder if all Québécois words and expressions are informal…

They’re not. There are many words and expressions unique to Québec that you’re just as likely to hear in everyday, spontaneous language as you are in a televised news report or formal language, in the same way that words like téléphone and café can cross language levels.

Below are some examples of both informal and level-neutral Québécois French.

Informal (between friends, for example)

• pogner, to grab, catch
• checker, to check
• c’est-tu…?, is it…?, is that…?
• capoter, to flip out
• m’as, I’m gonna (+ infinitive)
• c’est don’ bin cute!, is that ever cute!
• pis là, and then
• faque, so
• enweille!, come on then!
• un char, car

Level-neutral (not limited to one language level)

• un cégépien, cégep student
• faire l’épicerie, to go food shopping
• magasiner, to shop, shop around for
• une tête-de-violon, fiddlehead
• la poudrerie, blowing snow
• un melon d’eau, watermelon
• une pourvoirie, grounds where you can hunt, fish, trap
• à l’arrêt, at the stop sign
• un téléroman, soap opera
• un REER, retirement investment, pronounced ré-èr

It’s true that a lot of the language on OffQc falls more in the informal category than the level-neutral ones. I do this because this is the language that’s more difficult to learn.

Informal words and expressions are less likely to appear in dictionaries and learning materials than the level-neutral ones. Informal usages are also sometimes “hidden” from learners by language instructors who judge them negatively or, outside of Québec, may be unknown to them if they aren’t familiar with the Québécois variety of French.

The woman in line in front of me ordered coffee.

She then wanted one of those cardboard coffee cup sleeves because her coffee was hot — except she didn’t know what they were called.

This is what she wanted:

It’s called un manchon.

She didn’t ask for a tray, but if she had, she could’ve asked for un cabaret, which is this:

If she’d wanted a tray to take outside of the restaurant, she could’ve asked for un cabaret de transport, which is this:

• un manchon
• un cabaret
• un cabaret de transport

On the radio, I heard a speaker say this in an advertisement:

Pis? Ça va-tu mieux?
So? Is it better? Is that better?
Are things better?

We’ve seen in other posts how pis (sounds like pi and is a contraction of puis) is often used in the sense of and. Although we could in fact translate it as and here, it’s being used as a way to get someone to speak.

Pis?
And? So? Well?

In the question ça va-tu mieux?, can you identify the subject?

This question contains the informal yes-no question marker tu. You can mentally replace it with oui ou non in your head:

Ça va-tu mieux?
Ça va-[oui ou non] mieux?

This means, of course, that tu is not the subject in this question. Tu only signals here that this is a yes-no question, asked in an informal way.

These are called Timbits; they’re sold at Tim Hortons

After looking at the Québécois names for trays and coffee cup sleeves in #1013, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to look again at ways of ordering coffee itself, as well as a few other food items.

A lot of people land on OffQc looking for help with ordering at Tim Hortons in particular because of road trips, so that’s what we’ll go with here. The coffee at Tim Hortons is filter coffee, and people usually add milk, cream or sugar to it, which is why the cups are so big. The coffee is usually served in a paper cup.

I’ve written some sample exchanges below. The prices are just made up. I’ve tried to include a variety of ways of ordering here, trying to imagine the situations you might find yourself in and the different usages you might hear.

— Passez ici! (…) Bonsoir.
— Bonsoir, un moyen deux-deux, s’il vous plaît.
— C’est pour ici ou pour emporter?
— Pour emporter.
— C’est tout?
— Oui, c’est tout.
— Ça fait une et cinquante.

— Next! (…) Good evening.
— Good evening, a medium double-double, please.
— Is it for here or to go?
— To go.
— Will that be all?
— Yes, that’s all.
— That’ll be one fifty.

— Passez ici!
— Bonjour, je vais prendre un petit café, s’il vous plaît.
— Qu’est-ce qu’on met dedans?
— Un lait, un sucre.
— Ensuite?
— C’est tout.
— Une et vingt-cinq, s’il vous plaît. (…) C’est juste à côté pour votre café. Ça sera pas long.
— OK, merci.
— Passez une bonne journée.

— Next!
— Hi, I’ll take a small coffee, please.
— How do you take it?
— One milk, one sugar.
— Will that be all?
— That’s it.
— One twenty-five, please. (…) Your coffee will be just off to the side. It won’t be long (in coming).
— OK, thanks.
— Have a good day.

— Suivant! (…) Bonjour, monsieur.
— Bonjour, ça va être un moyen café une crème, un sucre; un petit café noir; un grand deux-deux; et un moyen deux crèmes, pas de sucre.
— Ensuite?
— C’est tout.
— Sept et soixante, s’il vous plaît. (…) C’est pour emporter?
— Oui.
— Voulez-vous un cabaret de transport?
— Oui, s’il vous plaît.

— Next! (…) Hello, sir.
— Hello, I’ll take a medium coffee one cream, one sugar; a small black coffee; a large double-double; and a medium with two creams, no sugar.
— Anything else?
— That’s it.
— Seven sixty, please. (…) Is it to go?
— Yes.
— Would you like a take-out/take-away tray?
— Yes, please.

— Suivant!
— Bonjour, un grand café deux crèmes, deux sucres.
— Autre chose?
— Oui, une boîte de vingt Timbits.
— Avez-vous une préférence (pour les Timbits)?
— Non… mélangés.
— Autre chose?
— C’est tout.
— Quatre et trente-cinq, s’il vous plaît. (…) Voulez-vous la facture?
— Non, merci.
— Merci à vous, bonne journée.

— Next!
— Hello, a large coffee with two creams, two sugars.
— Anything else?
— Yes, a box of twenty Timbits.
— Do you have a preference (i.e., for which Timbits you want)?
— No… mixed.
— Anything else?
— That’s all.
— Four thirty-five, please. (…) Do you want the receipt?
— No, thank you.
— Thank you, good day.

— Passez ici!
— Bonjour, je prendrais une demi-douzaine de beignes, s’il vous plaît.
— Mélangés?
— Oui.
— Ensuite?
— Un moyen café corsé.
— On met quoi dedans?
— Noir, s’il vous plaît.
— Ensuite?
— Un bagel plein goût avec du fromage à la crème.
— Grillé?
— Oui.
— Est-ce qu’on met du beurre?
— Non, pas de beurre.
— Autre chose?
— Une brioche à la cannelle deux fois.
— C’est va être tout?
— Oui, merci.
— Dix et cinquante.

— Next!
— Hi, I’ll take a half-dozen donuts, please.
— Mixed?
— Yes.
— Anything else?
— A medium dark roast.
— With what in it? (i.e., how do you take it?)
— Black, please.
— Anything else?
— An Everything bagel with cream cheese.
— Toasted?
— Yes.
— With butter?
— No, no butter.
— Anything else?
— Two cinnamon buns.
— Will that be all?
— Yes, thanks.
— Ten fifty.

Well, that should get you unstuck out of a few situations at any rate!

___

Updates:

• An iced cappuccino is called un cappuccino glacé on the menu, but most people just call it an iced capp when they order, which sounds like ice cap (aïss capp). If you wanted a small iced capp, for example, you can ask for un petit iced capp.
• The breakfast sandwich is called le Timatin (which comes from Tim + matin and is also a wordplay on ti-matin, p’tit matin).
• A danish is une danoise; a muffin is un muffin.
• For the donut names, check what they’re called on the little signs under each one when you’re ordering. If you want more than one of something, you can use deux fois, trois fois, etc. For example, if you’re choosing a dozen donuts, you could say glacé au chocolat trois fois if you wanted three chocolate dip donuts.

Jardin botanique

In the last post, you looked at vocab and mock conversations related to ordering in French at Tim Hortons. After I went live with it, I began adding notes down at the bottom of the post (like what deux-deux, double-double is exactly). If you haven’t seen those additions, you can check them out.

I also want to give you a search tip on OffQc. If there’s a French word you’d like to hear pronounced by a Québécois speaker, you can check for it in the Listen to Québécois French section of OffQc.

To find and hear pis, for example, search for this in Google:

site:offqc.com/listen pis

All the videos in the Listen section where pis is used will appear in the Google search results. Follow one of the links, then listen for the word in the video once you’re back on OffQc. You can locate the word with the help of the transcription below the video.

To look for and hear a different word, just change pis to that word, for example:

site:offqc.com/listen toé

Ça va bien?

A reader of OffQc asks how to answer the question ça va bien? It’s a good question because it might not be immediately obvious to you. Ça va bien? is a yes-no question, so if you’re wondering if can answer with oui or non, the answer is oui!

A very common way to answer the question is with oui, toi? It’s a reflex to answer like that, in the same way that it’s a reflex to say good and you? in English. In fact, oui, toi? is very often pronounced as though it were a single word — ouitoi — without the usual rising intonation at the end typical of yes-no questions.

Ça va bien?
Ouitoi.

Of course, you don’t need to limit yourself to that response.

You can be more enthusiastic:

Oui, très bien!
Oh que oui!
Ben oui, ça va super bien!
Merveilleusement bien, merci!

Or you can be a grouch:

Non, ça va pas pantoute.
Bof, fatigué, là…

Or you can just be polite:

Oui, ça va bien, et toi?
Oui, très bien, merci.
Oui, merci, et toi?

A reader of OffQc asks for help understanding the difference between the French words for broom and vacuum cleaner as used in Québec, as well as the difference between the French verbs for to sweep and to vacuum.

Nice question! The word for broom in French is un balai. There are two ways vacuum cleaner is said in French: un aspirateur, une balayeuse.

When it refers to a vacuum cleaner, the term balayeuse — it sounds a lot like balai, doesn’t it? — is specific to the French used in Québec. Aspirateur is used everywhere, including Québec.

If you were to go shopping for a vacuum cleaner, you’d see the term aspirateur on the box. Balayeuse, on the other hand, feels more like a colloquial usage.

So those are the words for broom and vacuum cleaner.

• un balai, broom
• une balayeuse, vacuum cleaner
• un aspirateur, vacuum cleaner

If you’re going shopping for a vacuum cleaner, you can talk about it with the verb magasiner. For example, magasiner un aspirateur means to shop around for a vacuum cleaner.

What about the verb forms? You can use passer with all three words:

• passer le balai, to sweep (with a broom)
• passer la balayeuse, to vacuum
• passer l’aspirateur, to vacuum

If you want to say where the sweeping or vacuuming is done, you can use dans, for example: j’ai passé la balayeuse dans ma chambre.

But there’s also the verb balayer, which means to sweep:

• balayer, to sweep (with a broom)

If you want to say to sweep the floor using this verb, you can say balayer le plancher. Balayer la cuisine is to sweep the kitchen.

Pronunciation tip

Balai sounds like balè. Are you pronouncing è correctly?

Say these two words in French: mes and messe.

Mes sounds like mé, but messe sounds like mèss. Do you hear the difference between the two vowel sounds? The è sound of messe is the same sound used in balai. Balai ends in the same sound as that informal English word of indifference: meh.

In #1015, you saw some different ways of asking for coffee and food items in French at Tim Hortons.

At a different restaurant, I was reminded of another way sometimes used to order food when I heard a woman say:

Donne-moé don’ […].

For example, donne-moé don’ un muffin. This is good to know if you’re working the cash and serving francophones. Donne-moé is a colloquial variation on donne-moi. Don’ is in fact donc, but the c isn’t pronounced.

You may remember I’ve mentioned before that nobody expects a learner or non-native speaker to say moé. I usually even discourage it — not because moé is wrong, of course, but because a learner’s use of it may strike some native-speakers as bizarre or even comical.

As a learner, you can go with some of the ways in #1015 instead; the easiest way is to just say the item followed by s’il vous plaît, for example: Bonjour, le trio Big Mac, s’il vous plaît. (Un trio is what a meal is called at McDonalds, i.e., a combo.)

It turns out donne-moé don’ is in fact already on OffQc — even I don’t remember what’s here sometimes! — in this video from the Listen to Québécois French section.

The speaker says:

Donne-moé don’ un gratteux à trois piasses.

Un gratteux is a scratch-n-win lottery ticket. Un gratteux à trois piasses is a ticket that costs three dollars to buy, where piasses is a colloquial equivalent of dollars.

Here’s even more wording you can add to your knowledge when asking for something in a restaurant; a guy in his 20s said:

Je vais juste vous demander une cuillère, s’il vous plaît, pis une autre coupe.
Can I just have a spoon, please, and another cup.

sundae, coupe glacée

The guy had just ordered ice cream in a cup (une coupe). Just as it was given to him, this was how he asked for a spoon and another cup — maybe to share with someone.

The image is of a McDonalds style coupe glacée or sundae. The sun part of sundae sounds like sonne; the dae part sounds like dé. If you want a chocolate one, add au chocolat to the term; if you want a caramel one, add au caramel.

un sundae au caramel

You can use the wording in the post about ordering in French at Tim Hortons in Québec to order at McDonalds as well.

Bonjour, je vais prendre le trio Big Mac. / Ça va être le filet de poisson. / Un McFlurry, s’il vous plaît. Hello, I’ll take the Big Mac combo. / I’ll have the filet-o-fish. / A McFlurry, please.

You might be asked what size for certain items: Quel format? Some items have special names for sizes (collation, classique, etc.) so look at the overhead screens for the words. Otherwise, you can probably get away with petit, moyen, grand in many situations.

Pis from the quote above sounds like the English word pee, or as if it were written pi in French. It’s a contraction of puis, and it just means and here. If you want to hear it, search for this in Google: site:offqc.com/listen pis and all the videos in the Listen to Québécois French section where it’s used will appear in the results.

In case you missed it, I added a post yesterday about donne-moé don’ also heard when ordering.

In this post, I’ve taken some usages heard in Québécois French that were said by a woman in her 70s in Montréal.

• faire peinturer

She was talking about getting a room in her house painted; faire peinturer means to have painted, to get painted (by someone else), for example faire peinturer les murs, to get the walls painted. If you look up the verb to paint in the dictionary, you’ll probably find peindre instead. Québécois usage prefers peinturer.

• quand qu’y’a fermé la porte

Y’a is an informal pronunciation of il a, but there’s also a que slipped in here that maybe you weren’t expecting; it means when he shut the door. You’ll often hear que inserted after quand like this in colloquial language. Another example: quand qu’y’a fini, when he finished.

• dans ma chambre de bain

She referred to her bathroom as une chambre de bain. In the Grand dictionnaire terminologique, we read something interesting about this term:

Chambre de bains (ou chambre de bain) est souvent présenté comme un calque de l’anglais à éviter, alors qu’il s’agit plutôt d’un terme d’origine française. Le mot chambre était déjà utilisé en ancien français pour désigner une pièce quelconque de la maison.

Par ailleurs, on trouve chambre de bains et chambre de bain chez des auteurs français du XIXe siècle. Ce terme est toujours utilisé dans certaines aires francophones. On en trouve des traces en France et en Belgique, et il est encore en usage au Québec et en Suisse. Il est toutefois en perte de vitesse dans ce dernier pays.

[chambre de bains | chambre de bain] Au Québec, il est surtout relevé dans des contextes de langue courante, tandis que salle de bains et salle de bain sont employés dans toutes les situations de communication.

Chambre de bains (ou chambre de bain) is often considered an anglicism to be avoided, whereas it is in fact originally a French term. The word chambre was already in use in Old French to designate any room of a house [as opposed to pièce].

Furthermore, chambre de bains and chambre de bain were used by certain French authors in the 19th century. This term is still in use in some French-speaking areas. There are still traces of it in France and Belgium, and it is still in use in Québec and Switzerland. It is, however, falling out of use in Switzerland.

In Québec, chambre de bains and chambre de bain are mostly used in colloquial language situations, whereas salle de bains and salle de bain are used in any language situation.

In #1015, you saw how to order at Tim Hortons in French when in Québec.

Then you saw some random bits of McDonalds vocab in the posts following that one; let’s build on that now to create a more complete post here about how to order at McDonalds in French when in Québec.

Same concept as the Tim Hortons post — mock exchanges with a cashier typical of what you might hear in a McDonalds in Québec. The prices are made up.

— Passez ici, s’il vous plaît!
— Bonjour, je vais prendre le trio Big Mac.
— C’est pour manger ici?
— Non, c’est pour emporter.
— Neuf et dix, s’il vous plaît.

— Next, please!
— Hi, I’ll take the Big Mac combo (meal), please.
— Is it for here?
— No, it’s to go.
— Nine ten, please.

— Passez ici!
— Bonjour, ça va être le filet de poisson.
— Voulez-vous le trio?
— Non, merci.
— Ça va être tout?
— Oui.
— Quatre dollars.

— Next!
— Hi, I’ll take a filet-o-fish.
— Do you want the combo?
— No, thanks.
— Will that be all?
— Yes.
— Four dollars.

— Suivant!
— Bonjour, je vais prendre un cheese* pis une petite frite.
— C’est pour ici ou pour emporter?
— Pour emporter.
— Ça fait quatre et cinquante.

— Next!
— Hi, I’ll take a cheeseburger and small fries.
— Is it for here or to go?
— To go.
— That’ll be four fifty.

— Bienvenue chez McDonalds!
— Bonjour, je vais prendre un cornet.
— Autre chose?
— Oui, un sundae au caramel.
— Ensuite?
— Un McFlurry Oreo.
— Quel format?
— Collation.*
— Autre chose?
— Oui, le trio Quart de livre avec fromage.
— Quel breuvage?
— Un coke. Ah, pis je vais prendre un Joyeux festin Poulet McCroquettes, pis le trio CBO* deux fois.
— Ensuite?
— C’est tout.
— C’est pour emporter?
— C’est pour manger ici!
— Quarante dollars. (…) Bon appétit!
— Merci. (…) Ah, je vais juste vous demander du ketchup, s’il vous plaît.
— C’est juste là-bas, à côté des breuvages.
— Parfait, merci.
— Bonne journée.

— Welcome to McDonalds!
— Hi, I’ll take an ice cream cone.
— Anything else?
— Yes, a caramel sundae.
— Next?
— An Oreo McFlurry.
— What size?
— Snack size.*
— Anything else?
— Yes, the Quarter pounder with cheese combo.
— What drink?
— A coke. Oh, and I’ll also take a Chicken McNuggets Happy Meal, and two CBO combos.
— Next?
— That’s it.
— Is it to go?
— It’s for here!
— Forty dollars. (…) Bon appétit!
— Thanks. (…) Oh, can I just get some ketchup, please?
— It’s just over there, next to the drinks.
— Perfect, thanks.
— Have a good day.

*You can also say cheeseburger, of course. CBO is pronounced cé-bé-ô. The small McFlurry size is called collation; the large McFlurry size is called classique.

In the 1000 Québécois French PDF that you can buy here or read more about first here, there’s an example sentence (#24) that reads:

J’viens d’me faire une blonde.

Une blonde is a girlfriend. Literally, this sentence translates as I’ve just made myself a girlfriend, but it can be used where you might say in English something like I’m going out with someone new, I’ve got a new girlfriend.

The expression here is se faire une blonde.

A similar expression very good to know is se faire des amis, to make friends. In French, you make yourself some friends, so don’t forget to use se faire here.

Je n’arrive pas à me faire des amis.
I can’t make friends.
I’m having trouble making friends.

In #1020, we saw an example of where a Québécois speaker in Montréal said:

quand qu’y’a fermé la porte
(an informal variation on quand il a fermé la porte)
when he closed the door

Instead of saying just quand, she said quand que. This is a feature of colloquial language. It’s not necessary for you to include this que yourself here, but it’s always good to understand what people are saying.

It’s not just after quand that you might hear que added in. I heard another example of it today, this time using comment instead:

comment qu’y pensaient
(an informal variation on comment ils pensaient)
how they used to think

Remember, il and ils are pronounced informally as i’, often written as y.

If you’re new to OffQc, you might like to get a copy of C’est what?

C’est what? is an OffQc guide that you can use to get started in understanding what makes Québécois French Québécois, with lots of examples that you can use immediately yourself in conversations. You can buy it here, or you can learn more about it here first.

In C’est what?, there’s an example on the page for sentence 5 that reads: Prends-moi pas pour un cave. Literally, it means don’t take me for an idiot, but it can be used where an English speaker might say I’m not an idiot, you know. How does this sentence work exactly?

Prends-moi pas pour un cave.

• prends-moi, take me
• prends-moi pas, take me not
• pour, for
• un cave, an idiot

If you’re taking French lessons, you’ll have learned (or will learn) to negate prends-moi like this: ne me prends pas. But that’s not what we’ve got in the example above; we’ve got prends-moi pas. Why?

Negating prends-moi as prends-moi pas is an informal usage. It’s what you’d hear used spontaneously in conversations. You’ll notice this informal negation is simply the affirmative form with pas added to it.

Today, I heard someone say in French don’t listen to them, in an informal style. Based on the above, can you guess how it was said?

Answer
If listen to them is écoute-les, then the informal negation of it is écoute-les pas. (The non-colloquial way is ne les écoute pas.)