If you live in a bilingual city, there’s no avoiding it, you’ll end up speaking a little bit of both languages daily. Some purists will say it’s a real abomination that people mix up languages in the same sentence. Well, if you’ve ever been in Canada, specifically in Montreal, Quebec, you will often hear people use Franglais sentences. It means that they mix English words with French ones. This phenomenon is called speaking Franglais. We’ve compiled 10 common franglais phrases you could hear in Quebec. Try to see if you can guess their meaning!
10 examples of franglais
Trouver un parking
Trouver un parking means to find a parking. If you are looking for parking in Montreal, you have to look for P signs and not S signs (for stationnement) so maybe that’s why it get confusing. Whatever the reason, you’ll probably hear this at least once if ever you visit.
On va bruncher?
Quebecers love to brunch. They will wait hours in line to have fluffy pancakes, creamy egg benedicts and perfectly crisp bacon. These Frenchies conjugate the English word and slip it in the French sentence. We can’t blame them though…The French don’t really have a word that perfectly encompasses the word Brunch so for now, we will happily accept it.
C’est l’fun
Because of Quebec’s history with both English and French colonization, there are a lot of English words that have smoothly transitioned into the French language. For Quebecers, saying C’est amusant! or C’est plaisant! is not something you hear often…Fun is one of those words that is accepted without too many tiffs.
J’ai eu un down d’énergie
J’ai eu un down d’énergie is a sentence you often hear near university cafes or libraries. Students love to use this sentence in the middle of the afternoon, right before a well-earned coffee or tea break.
J’ai rusher pour m’en venir ici
You know when you really had to get somewhere fast, almost running there? Well for Quebecers, ‘rusher’ means that.
Tu vas tripper au Vietnam
This one is kind of weird since tripper is close to the English word ‘trip’ but they don’t mean the same thing. When people use this word, they mean to say you’ll really love it or you’ll really enjoy it. Tripper appeared on huge city billboards so I guess it’s pretty accepted.
Je t’ai forwardé son courriel
Sometimes people are just lazy and it’s easier to just say a universal word than to dig in in your mind to find the appropriate word. Usually, people’s emails are in English so it’s normal to retain ‘forward’ and not transférer a document. Let’s say that some franglais sentences are a mix of laziness and pure convenience.
Ils ont towé mon char les maudits
Ils ont towé mon char les maudits means ‘they towed my car the bastards’. When you’re so angry that you can’t make a proper French sentence you really mean it when you say you’re angry about it.
Check mes nouveaux souliers
Quebecers are obsessed with saying ‘check’. They say it all the time in any situation. So in this sentence check mes nouveaux souliers is like saying ‘look at my new shoes’ but the ‘look’ in this sentence is like ‘admire my new shoes’ (there’s a huge difference, am I right?).
Veux-tu un lift après la job ce soir?
‘Lift’ is another one of those words that just transitioned into the franglais and you can’t really give an explanation why it’s so popular.
Which other Franglais sentences do you use daily? Did you know that some English words are actually French?
