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Ça va fesser fort: How FESSER is used in Québec to talk about physical and...
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...
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C’est l’heure du lunch! Words used in Québec related to meals (#1006)
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...
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C’est weird, c’est tannant… whatever (#1007)
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...
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French on a sign in a Montréal pharmacy (#1008)
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...
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A resident describes her drinking water: c’est pas sentable (#1009)
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...
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“Ça se peut-tu” ou “ça se peux-tu”? (#1010)
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...
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Je faisais la job d’un parent (#1011)
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...
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Are all usages specific to Québécois French informal? (#1012)
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...
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What do you call those cardboard coffee cup sleeves in French? (#1013)
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...
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Pis? Ça va-tu mieux? (#1014)
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...
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How to order at Tim Hortons in French when in Québec (#1015)
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...
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How do you answer the French question ÇA VA BIEN? (#1016)
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...
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What’s the difference between the words for broom and vacuum cleaner in...
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...
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Donne-moé don’ un gratteux (#1018)
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...
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More help with ordering fast food in French in Québec (#1019)
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....
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3 Québécois French usages said by a woman in her 70s in Montréal (#1020)
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...
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How to order at McDonalds in French when in Québec (#1021)
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...
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How to use SE FAIRE in French when talking about making friends (#1022)
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,...
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Heard in French conversation: quand que, comment que (#1023)
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...
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How might someone say “don’t listen to them” informally in French? (#1024)
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...
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