In hopes of blending in and not sticking out like a sore thumb while I am in France I want to learn some common phrases, some common french colloquialism, if you will. My findings are not complete nor are they 100% trust worthy in context but I have heard them before so I am not too scared to use them in public. Once I test them on the streets of France, I will report back to you all on my success rate with each of them.
“-Ça roule?”
“-Comme d’hab!”
Ça roule means that everything’s great or going well. Therefore, in the form of a question, it means ‘How’s life? Good? or Is life good?
in response one would say in essence, just as normal or comme d’habitude which is then shortened to comme d’hab!
–N’importe quoi!
which means what ever but
–C’est n’importe quoi!
means that’s nonsense
–Laisse tomber…
not as snappy as drop it but not as relaxed as forget it, slight mix between the two. How I think of it is a Chicagoan “fouwr gett abat it.”
–Ça te dit?
which is are you up for it or sound good to you? If you make a Saturday night plan and want to know what your friends think add Ca te dit? to the end kind of something like…..Mad Max is playing at AMC tomorrow, you up for it? or does that sound good to you?
Tu t’en sors ?
you doing OK over there?
Tu fais quoi?
whatcha doin? pretty laid back thing to say.
T’sais?
ya know? super common thing to say.
Also I learned FluentU a site can really help be more conversational and casual with french, it takes real life french media and uses them to teach french to beginners.
I know I will be using these in the near future to make some friends, I hope they just take pity on me and welcome me with open arms. From what I know about french culture that’s highly unlikely.
we shall see
x0x0
Richu
Bavard et Bouffer 