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Say it in French: Translate 125 sentences to conversational Québécois French...
Good news — if you want more practice with the Québécois French vocabulary and expressions used on OffQc, I’ve got something new for you. Say it in French Translate 125 sentences to conversational...
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On a de la misère à sortir de notre entrée (#906)
Taking in the (pre-)springtime sun in Montréal While on the métro, I grabbed a copy of the Métro newspaper sitting on a seat next to me. This sentence caught my eye in one of the articles: On a déjà de...
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Flash quiz 7 questions — test your Québécois French! (#907)
What’s the red thing called? (Answer below.) Flash quiz, 7 questions! The answers follow, with a few notes where necessary. 1. If someone’s got a face de boeuf, he or she has a) a hungry look on the...
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J’ai encore des croûtes à manger (#908)
Here’s an expression used in Québec that I think you’ll like to learn: avoir encore des croûtes à manger or just avoir des croûtes à manger In the examples below from different newspapers online, can...
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How is the word CROCHE used in Québécois French? (#909)
A word that came up in a conversation yesterday was croche. It means “crooked.” Someone with crooked teeth has les dents croches. If you’ve got les dents croches, you might wear des broches to...
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What does MALAISANT mean in Québécois French? (#910)
Found this example of the adjective malaisant used in Québec on the Les Parent Facebook page. Malaisant = qui rend mal à l’aise It’s a fictitious text message conversation between Oli (blue) and his...
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2 ways to pronounce LÀ and ÇA in Québécois French (#911)
A reader of OffQc asks how to pronounce là because he’s been hearing two pronunciations of it. In fact, it’s not just là that has two pronunciations but also ça. Let’s look at how they’re pronounced in...
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Translation exercise using Québécois French vocabulary (#912)
Here’s a translation exercise you can do, similar to the ones in Say it in French: Translate 125 sentences to conversational Québécois French. See if you can say the sentences below in French (the...
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Les petites bibittes ne mangent pas les grosses (#913)
I came across this sign in a Montréal métro station: Les petites bibittes ne mangent pas les grosses! The sign is from Montréal’s Insectarium, which is an insect museum. Une bibitte — maybe you’ll...
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A look at the Québécois usages BOUCANE and MAGANER (#914)
Two years ago, we saw this ad from a health campaign aimed at preventing young people from smoking: Magane pas tes organes Don’t wreck your organs The verb maganer is used in Québécois French in the...
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On fait toute — toute, toute, toute! (#915)
On the radio, I heard an ad from Midas, who do car repairs. They used a slogan: On fait tout We do it all Except the speaker didn’t pronounce tout as tou. He pronounced it informally as toute. This...
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3 Québécois usages from radio: maganer, dispendieux, magasiner (#916)
Here’s more stuff from the radio. The radio’s good because you can leave it on in the background, if it’s not too distracting for you. For suggestions of stations, check Brad’s links page on his...
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C’est vraiment pas fin (#917)
In the past two posts, we’ve looked at some language overheard on the radio: « on fait tout », where tout was pronounced toute the verb maganer, which means to wreck, ruin the adjective dispendieux,...
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Overheard Québécois French from Montréal (#918)
Photo not taken today, but that’s pretty much what things looked like this morning… :-( I kept my ears open today… here’s some overheard French from around Montréal! Ben voyons don’! Ayoye! Comment ça?...
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10 words or expressions used in both Québécois and Belgian French (#919)
The Québécois Usito dictionary contains a list of belgicismes (words and expressions used in Belgian French). We’ve seen before how the names of the three meals of the day are the same in Québécois and...
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7 words used in both Québécois and Swiss French (#920)
In the last post, we looked at 10 words and expressions common to both Belgian and Québécois French. This time, let’s do the same with Swiss French. A word or expression used in Swiss French is called...
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Informal pronunciation of JE SUIS before a vowel (#921)
We’ve seen how je suis can contract to what sounds like chu at the informal level of language. But when the next word after chu begins with a vowel, an additional change can occur. The expression en...
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5 random things to learn in Québécois French (#922)
1. In the last entry, we saw how je suis en can contract to j’t’en, where j’ makes a ch sound (ch’t’en). We’ve seen je suis reduced to just a ch sound before in Lisa LeBlanc’s song J’pas un cowboy...
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How can JE ME SUIS contract in informal Québécois French? (#923)
Yesterday we looked at how je suis can contract when the next word begins with a vowel. For example, je suis en maudit can contract to j’t’en maudit, where j’t’en sounds like ch’t’en. Let’s look at...
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What does Y’EST RENDU OÙ mean? (#924)
A reader asks how rendu is used. There are different ways, but let’s just look here at what it means in the question y’est rendu où? Rendu is the past participle of the verb rendre. Here, we can...
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