1. A reader of OffQc tells me that he overheard someone say what sounded like jézaime. He was happy when he realised that he had understood what this meant: je les aime. It was pronounced informally as j’es aime (jé-zaime), where je les contracted to j’es.
2. I was reminded of the word cabaret the other day when the cashier at a restaurant counter asked if I wanted a tray for the food I had ordered. Voulez-vous un cabaret? Do you want a tray?
Nice tuque!
3. Learn these six words related to winter clothing: un gant (glove), une mitaine (mitten), un manteau (coat), une tuque (tuque, winter hat), un foulard (scarf), une botte (boot), and how to say below-zero temperatures: -26, il fait moins vingt-six.
4. A group of kids opened a box of Timbits. Before they started attacking the box, one of the kids exclaimed: un chaque! un chaque!, one each! one each!
5. A friend said y s’en vient, he’s coming, he’s on his way. Y is an informal pronunciation of il. The verb here is s’en venir. Similarly, je m’en viens, I’m coming, I’m on my way. Viens-t’en! Come!
6. A man wanted to get past me on the metro because he was getting off at the next station. He used the verb débarquer to describe the action of getting off the train. This verb can also be used to describe getting off a bus. Pie-IX is a metro station in Montréal. It’s pronounced pi-neuf. If you got off at Pie-IX, you could say j’ai débarqué à Pie-IX.
Image from Kena & Brutus
