Today’s three usages come to us by way of a woman in her 70s. I overheard her speaking with her husband in Montréal.
1. une sacoche
One of the things the woman talked about was her handbag (or purse), which she called une sacoche. I don’t recall her exact words now, but here’s an example:
J’ai laissé ma sacoche sous la table.
I left my handbag (purse) under the table.
2. un char de police
Not far from us, a man got arrested outside. The woman talked about the police cars on the scene.
We’ve seen the masculine word char before, which means “car” in Québec. The woman used this word to talk about the police cars, calling them chars de police.
Y’a deux chars de police.
There are two police cars.
Remember, y’a is an informal (and the most frequent) pronunciation of il y a.
3. m’as
The woman also used the contraction m’as, which means “I’m gonna…” It’s pronounced mâ.
M’as te dire une affaire, là.
I’m gonna tell you something.
M’as aller m’en chercher un.
I’m gonna go get myself one.
If these don’t make sense to you, replace m’as with je vais.
Where does m’as come from?
je m’en vais
je m’en va’s
m’en va’s
m’as
Je m’en vais is a variation of the simpler je vais.
You don’t have to start using m’as yourself. Nobody expects a non-native Québécois to use it. Do learn what it means though so you’ll understand it when you hear it. It’s always fine to use je vais. (Note that the Québécois very often say je vas as well, which sounds like je vâ.)
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