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5 fun examples to help further your knowledge of conversational French (#639)
Ostie que ça pue Here are 5 items in French that you’ll find useful to learn. This list of 5 all started with 1 smelly garbage bin in Montréal… 1. Ostie que ça pue! “Fuck that stinks!” I heard a man...
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5 instructive examples of conversational French overheard in Montréal (#640)
Here are five very useful examples of conversational French that have come up in conversations or that I’ve overheard in Montréal over the past few days. You can read the notes for each example for...
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4 cheeky examples of French from a satirical québécois website (#641)
Le Navet, satirique mais poli John just completed an 8 km run with RunTastic and nobody gives a shit, confirm his friends That’s the headline used in an article from Le Navet, which I’ve translated...
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3 examples of French overheard in Montréal + 1 question answered (#642)
More overheard French from around Montréal for you (1. enweille, 2. on se dépêche, 3. bonne fin de semaine), plus Chris asks a question about the expression quand même. 1. Enweille! Come on! This was...
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5 solid ways to improve your listening comprehension in French (#643)
“Help! I think I speak pretty good French, but I still have so much trouble understanding what people are saying!” If that describes you, know that you’re not alone. Improving your listening skills...
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4 things to learn in French from 1 Mike Ward tweet (#644)
Mike Ward is a comedian from Québec. Here’s what he tweeted on 15 July: Pu de batteries AA pour ma souris, j’en ai patenté une avec une batterie AAA et du papier d’alu… MacGyver serait fier de moi....
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Quebec French field trip: OffQc does Dollarama (#645)
At Dollarama, you’ll find all kinds of crap you never knew you needed. What you won’t find though are lessons in Quebec French. For that, you need OffQc. Let’s go on a Dollarama field trip. Birthday...
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5 new examples of French overheard (and seen) in Montréal (#646)
Here are 5 new examples of French from around Montréal. 1. Bonjour, bonjour, rebonjour! A guy who I bumped into twice within the space of about 15 minutes rebonjoured me with rebonjour! It’s a playful...
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Summer reading: Petit guide du parler québécois (#647)
To give more depth to your knowledge of Quebec French vocabulary this summer, I can suggest the Petit guide du parler québécois by Mario Bélanger, 3rd edition. This book is the size of a paperback...
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Don’t give a shit? Neither does Harper (#648)
Adviser: Mr Harper, I think you may be showing too much neck, even for Québec. Harper: Oh je m’en crisse. C’est la fin de semaine. Donne-moi ce café. You’re becoming experts at saying that you don’t...
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Quebec French field trip: OffQc does Jean Coutu (#649)
Jean Coutu is a pharmacy in Québec whose slogan is: On trouve de tout… même un ami! And it’s true. You really will find a friend at Jean Coutu. They’re called condoms. 1. condom In Québec, the...
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Getting the liaison right in French: 3 examples (#650)
1. mes amis Say: mé za mi 2. aux études Say: au zé tude 3. vous avez Say: vou za vé When the liaison occurs between two words, it’s really the second word whose pronunciation changes, not the first....
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Learn lots of “street French” with Rabii Rammal (#651)
Rabii Rammal’s blog posts on the website version of Urbania are written in the form of letters. The “letters” are addressed to strangers who have crossed Rammal’s path in the city and caught his...
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7 new examples of spontaneous street French overheard in Montréal (#652)
These 7 examples really are “street French” because I overheard someone say each one of them in the street! 1. Pardon, ‘scusez! While waiting in line to get on an STM bus, an elderly woman behind me...
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Learn 3 essential features of French pronunciation from 1 question (#653)
Qu’est-ce t’as dit? During a conversation yesterday, a friend of mine said this to another friend: qu’est-ce t’as dit? It means: What did you say? or What did you just say? The friend who asked this...
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2 québécois expressions that illustrate an informal contraction in speech (#654)
Chu dans marde! In spoken French, you’ll often hear the word combination dans la said as dans. Before looking at that, let’s take two expressions used in Québec: être dans la marde avoir les yeux dans...
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2 examples of French related to money heard in Montréal (#655)
I heard two strangers say these examples of French yesterday in Montréal. They are both related to money. 1. Est-ce qu’y’a quelqu’un qui a jusse vingt cennes? A street kid asked this question of all...
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Learn French from 3 entertaining (and now educational) Rabii Rammal blog...
Here’s more fun stuff from Rabii! Rabii’s blog posts are written in the form of comical letters to different people who’ve crossed his path in Montréal. Below you’ll find some entertaining French to...
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5 examples of spontaneous French heard in Montréal + 1 image (#657)
Here are 5 new examples of spontaneous French from conversations or that I’ve overheard someone say in Montréal. 1. Y’est moins dix. It’s ten to. (Il est moins dix.) It was ten to three (14 h 50) when...
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More words using the â sound + locking up your bike in French (#658)
Do you know what a bike lock is called in French? What about those U-shaped bike locks… what are those called? How about locking up your bike: can you talk about this in French? I saw this sign in a...
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