School French vs Real French

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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: School French vs Real French

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Thu Aug 06, 2015 10:36 pm

Cavesa wrote:How do I remove a heart I accidentally gave myself when looking who gave me the first one?

If you click on the heart again, that will remove the heart you gave yourself.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

Cavesa
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Re: School French vs Real French

Postby Cavesa » Thu Aug 06, 2015 11:22 pm

Thanks
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kimchizzle
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Re: School French vs Real French

Postby kimchizzle » Fri Aug 07, 2015 3:11 am

Ogrim wrote:in everyday spoken French it is quite usual to abbreviate a lot of words:
.......
Le Bac for le Baccalauréat - the end exam after secondary/high school
le resto for le restaurant
t'inquiète for ne t'inquiète pas - don't worry
etc.

Some of these abbreviations, like Bac andpub have become so established that you will see them written in newspapers etc. as well. Others still only belong to the spoken language.


and don't forget le Macdo also. I don't remember ever hearing t'inquiète, but I heard t'inquiète pas a lot.

zenmonkey wrote:Correct: la Police
My mother in law (70 year old versaillaise with protest roots): les flics (never in front of them)

My daughters (French teens) back to La police, la popo. And ..., les keouf (a reverse argot called verlan - from flics. )

Some slang comes from Arabic.

As a foreigner unless you speak the language well - avoid it.


hmm, I didn't realize les flics is an older slang, I always used that one with friends. I was thinking I learned it from the movie, La Haine. I think it has a more negative meaning than the slang in English though. Calling a policeman a cop in English isn't so bad, but I think using flic instead of la police is stronger than in English. I can't be certain though, just my feeling.

Verlan can be fun. Ouf is a fairly common slang word in verlan meaning fou
meuf > femme
relou > lourd

I think certain slang coming from Arabic is more common than others and need no fear using it among friends or the younger generation.

kiffer, and bled were pretty common when I was in France.
kiffer - verb, slang for aimer
le bled - slang for la banlieue

In spoken french, certain vowels get dropped a lot.
ce qui > c'qui
ce que > c'que
je suis > j'suis
tu as > t'as
samedi > sam'di
pas de tout > pas d'tout
il y a > y a > ya Par exemple, ya beaucoup de gens au bar ce soir.
lots more that I can't think of off the top of my head.

Also in spoken French, people say certain expressions that are rarely encountered in writing (social media doesn't count).
quand même is the best example I have of this. I would hear this word very often in the streets but not in writing.


You can learn lots of slang and familiar language by listening to French rap songs. MC Solaar can be a good first choice cause he is a bit more poetic and doesn't rap as fast as some others.

Mc Solaar - Baby Love
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