1. AMÈNE DES NAPKINS!
In a fast food restaurant, one friend told another to bring serviettes on his way back to the table. Amène des napkins means bring some napkins.
You’ll frequently hear amener quelque chose in spoken language, so it’s important to learn. Amène une chaise. Bring a chair. Amène un cabaret. Bring a tray.
Napkin is a feminine noun, heard in informal language. It’s pronounced as in English, but with the stress on the second syllable rather than the first. With the plural napkins, the final s isn’t pronounced.
2. VOTRE NOM POUR LA FACTURE?
In some fast food restaurants, you’ll be asked what your name is when you place your order. Your name gets printed out on the receipt; rather than be called by number when your order is ready, you’ll be called by name.
Votre nom pour la facture? literally means (what is) your name for the receipt? Facture is the usual word for receipt in spoken language. Reçu is also possible and immediately understood by all, but it’s not usually the first word used spontaneously in conversation.
A bill is also called a facture, even in a restaurant. On peut-tu avoir la facture? Can we have the bill? Continue to number 3 below to understand what the tu in this question means.
3. C’EST-TU COMME ÇA QUE ÇA MARCHE?
In this question, the tu placed after the verb serves the same function as est-ce que would at the beginning: est-ce que c’est comme ça que ça marche? This tu creates a yes-no question, and it’s used very frequently in spoken language. This question, then, means is that how it works?, does it work like this?, etc.
In number 2, you read on peut-tu avoir la facture? The tu after the verb in this question serves the same purpose of asking a yes-no question.
This tu doesn’t mean you. In a question like tu m’aimes-tu? (do you love me?), only the first tu means you. The second one, placed after the verb, creates the yes-no question.
4. J’AI MES CLÉS À MOI
Person A asked person B whose keys he had on him: those of person A or B. Person B replied that he had his own keys on him: j’ai mes clés à moi.
With à moi, you can insist that something is yours. Mes clés à moi, my keys (and not yours or anybody else’s). Ça, c’est mon livre à moi, pas à toi. That’s my book, not yours.
5. ÇA VOUS TENTE-TU?
The expression ça m’tente (and variations on it) is used frequently in spoken language. Ça m’tente means I want to. The negation is ça m’tente pas. The ça m’ part (from ça me) sounds like the name Sam, where me loses its vowel and the remaining m’ is pronounced as though it were on the end of ça.
Ça vous tente means you want to. Using the informal tu described in number 3, this can be turned into a yes-no question: ça vous tente-tu? Remember, only vous means you here. We can translate ça vous tente-tu? as d’ya guys wanna?, d’yaz wanna?, etc.
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Learn how words contract in spoken Québécois French (with audio): read Contracted French
