Being French, I love to hear about how rude we are!
KIDDING.
We’re not that rude. Sure, we do have a few swear words, but certainly not as many as brits do. So, I thought it’ll be interesting to test your knowledge of French swear words and rude slang.
Let’s get to the rules. In order to receive the César of rudeness, you need to know 7 out of the 9 following words. Ready? Set. Go!
Try to identify the word in each of the videos 😉 Oh, and if you are easily offended, I suggest you go back in time and don’t click on the title of this blog post. I am going to use curse words in English too, as I have to explain it all.
1 - Merde
Why should we pass as rude when many languages use this word regularly ? Shit, Merda, Scheiße,…
What can I say, we are, after all, poetic creatures.
It’s not really insulting, just if you want to express how good, or bad something was it’s a good word to know.
Here are a few sentences with it:
2 - Putain
This is probably the most used French swear word. And it is so versatile, that it reminds me very much of the English F word. Except we don’t say ‘le mot en p’. That would just be weird.
You can use it within phrases, or on its own. You can also form a WHOLE sentence just with the word.
A word to know if you are reaching for fluency then!
Putain can be offensive to some people. Avoid saying it in front of children. Especially the one that tend to learn fast 😉
To understand putain fully : hop on to YouTube and watch this wonderful video.
3 - Bordel
To stay in the theme. Yes, a bordel is a brothel.
We use it quite often. It is not as rude as putain, but it’s still not ok to say if your grandma can hear you (unless your grandmother is unconventional).
You can use it to replace merde or putain, and it has an extra meaning: messy.
No need for a thesaurus then! It’s everything on its own.
4 - Fais chier
We like to diversify our swearing vocabulary. When it’s not about sex, it’s about poo. No, I don’t see why we are rude.
Fais Chier, literally means ‘it makes me shit’. It can be conjugated (check the sentences).
It becomes very offensive if you say it directly at someone. But can be said pretty casually amongst friends.
5 - Connard / Connasse
Oh we’re getting into the words to actually insult someone now. This is particularly interesting because the same word in its masculine and feminine gender has a slightly different meaning.
A connard is someone stupid, of very low intelligence. It’s a personal favourite of mine when it comes to other drivers.
A connasse is a women of low intelligence. And it can also be a prostitute of ‘low rank’. The masculine term doesn’t convey the prostitute meaning at all. Which reminds me of another interesting video.
Bref, passons.
6 - Salop / Salope
You can sometimes find it written salaud, even though you probably will hear it more than you will write it.
It means someone who is dirty, immoral. And, obviously, the feminine version also means prostitute. Can’t be rude if it’s not somehow sexual.
Be careful, it is different from the connard / connasse. A salaud can be intelligent, a connard isn’t. To me, it is ruder than connard / connasse, but I guess it is probably not a written rule.
7 - Pauvre con / Pauvre conne
This video gives you a glance at why French people are so bad at English. Btw, John Malkovich actually speaks French better than this.
We are not talking about finances here. Like in English, the word pauvre also means (of little) poor quality, poor skills,…
Un pauvre con or une pauvre conne, is a very sad, low stupid person. It does convey the same meaning as connard or connasse, but in, maybe, a less rude way, more pathetic.
8 - Ta gueule
“Quoi ma gueule ? Qu’est ce qu’elle a ma gueule ?” – RIP Johnny
I had to. #sorrynotsorry
Bref, a gueule is a face. And we actually use it outside of this expression : gueule de loup, gueules cassées,…
But mostly, we use as ‘ta gueule’, a quite not so polite way to say ‘be silent’. I guess it is the equivalent to the English ‘shut up’.
9 - Rien à foutre
Guess what? We’re back at it: sex.
The charming ‘foutre’ might be coming from latin, but it means ‘to have sex in a vulgar way’.
So what does ‘nothing to have sex with in a vulgar way’ could possibly means? Well, it means ‘I don’t care’.
I warned you. If it’s not about sex, we’re not interested.
Bonus points
You get two bonus point if you can combine French curse words.
If those words are maybe not as flexible as the F word, you can combine them to express a variety of different things. Just be creative.
Don’t think you’ll ever use those words ? You wouldn’t be able to understand this scene if you didn’t.
Would you rather be polite? Read this.
You’re welcome.
