There’s nothing worse than learning standard French for months and realise only when you arrive in France that you can’t understand because they don’t use standard French.
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So here is a short French slang conversation, with 4 important French slang terms you should know if you are learning French.
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But it’s not any slang. It’s slang that YOU can use without fearing being rude. What I like to call ‘ok-to-use’ slang.Â
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You can use those in a conversation, with friends, without fearing being too much.
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Imagine….
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PS: I brought my phone banana A-game in this article! Don’t be too impressed…
Author : Marie Drouvin
Salut! Je suis Marie and I'm on a mission to make learning French simple. You can find me on Youtube, or here, on this blog. And if you want to know more about how to learn French, take a look at my book.
Quoi de neuf?
Your friend is calling you, you haven’t spoken to each others in a few weeks, and you’re glad to get a call from her.
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After the initial ’Salut! Comment ça va? Ça va bien et toi?’
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She asks:
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‘Alors, quoi de neuf?’
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It doesn’t look like a normal French question, it’s a bit too short. Must be slang… What does it mean?
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Well it means ‘What’s new?’
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Quoi de neuf?
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Literally : What of new?
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You can then answer this question by everything that is new in your life since the last time she called.
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Like your brother’s new girlfriend, or your own romantic adventures.
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Or a new pickle recipe.
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Or something new you did at work.
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Or a project you are about to start.
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Let’s say you have nothing new to say.
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And you can then answer back:
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Et toi? Quoi de neuf?
Une meuf / un mec
Let’s say your friend doesn’t have news about herself.
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But about someone else.
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About:
Julien, le mec de ma cousine.
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Who now?
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Julien, le mec de ma cousine.
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Julien, ok
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Cousine, ok
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But mec?
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Mec is slang for man.
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The feminine equivalent being meuf.
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It can either mean : a man.Â
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Or : her man.
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In other words, her boyfriend.
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Le mec de ma cousine.
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Is my cousin’s boyfriend.
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Aaaah yes! You remember now, you talked about him last time.
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You friend told you that her cousin was engaged to a rich man.
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Must be him!
Le fric.
Yes, so what about him?
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What happened?
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Well.
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Il a perdu tout son fric.
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Perdre : to lost.
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Now, what did he lose?
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Fric?
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What’s that?
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Fric is money.
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Cash.
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It’s one of the many words French people use to refer to money.
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Oh no, so he lost all his money!
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Il a perdu tout son fric.
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How should you react?
La vache!
I would opt for La Vache!
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La vache!
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Means literally – the cow.
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And it’s the equivalent of the English – holy cow!
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La vache!
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You can say this when something sounds very big, very surprising.
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Positive or negative, it doesn’t matter.
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But it needs to be a reaction to something big.
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In our situation, if someone rich loses all his money – it is!
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La vache!
Read again this French slang conversation
Salut! Ça ca?Ça va et toi?Ça va, quoi de neuf?Rien, et toi? Quoi de neuf?Julien, le mec de ma cousine a perdu tout son fric.La vache!
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Now that’s a good introduction, but what about all the other French slang?
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If you want to get serious about learning informal French – I have something for you.
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A few months ago, I had a student who was learning French slang. BUT She had trouble finding the balance between what was rude and what was ok to use.
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So I put together a list of French slang for her, where I gave her 99 French slang that are ok to use.
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It’s not rude slang, or anything like this and most of the sentences you can use with friends.
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I decided then to package it, adding audio to it, and it’s now on the school.
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It’s a sentence pack of French slang. A sentence pack is really an ebook and audio files with sentences.
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It’s designed for intermediates who want to become fluent, and who want to use and understand casual and informal French.
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This week, you can get it with a $10 discount. But only until the 31th of October.