french slang

Thread: french slang

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  1. dandadda said:

    Smile french slang

    id like to know any french slang because im learnig french starting today all i know is

    boite-party
    soire-party
    follas-(spelled wrong but im sure means crazy woman)
     
  2. nicoloco said:

    Default French slang

    Hey hey, you want to get some French slang, here you go

    "boîte" (with the little hat on the "i") means "club" to go in a club or go clubbing is said "aller en boîte" it's not very slang but popular
    "soirée"-right! it means party but it's not a slang word (it just means "evening" and is a simplification of evening party). yougsters use to say the slangish "teuf"
    "folle" means crazy girl (not slang), but it means also homosexual (slang and slightly offensive, in this case)

    T'as pigé? (French slang expression to ask "got it?) ;-)

    Nico
     
  3. red_lionness said:

    Default

    "je le kiffe trop" - I like it very much
     
  4. nicoloco said:

    Default kiffe

    Yeah Red lioness, perfeclty right,

    it's very strange how this French slang word (probalbly comes from Arabic) has become THE verb that all teens use, it even turn to a noun: "c'est mon kiff" (=it's THE thing I love).

    Teens even say "Je kiffe trop" or "je kiffe grâve" the put an emphasis, but adults really thinks it's definitely bad French.

    Nico
     
  5. birdman said:

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    Thanks guys! I've never understood this word properly before. I knew that kif meant hash and the expression c'est kif-kif so having come across the phrase 'Fabien Barthez kiffe la vie' I'd always thought it meant 'take life as it comes' or to go through life as though you were stoned.

    Please could you explain the expression 'avoir les moules'. I know it means something like 'etre fachE' or 'en avoir marre' or 'avoir le cafard' but which is it and can it mean aything else? any idea where it comes from?
     
  6. nicoloco said:

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    Quote Originally Posted by birdman View Post
    Thanks guys! I've never understood this word properly before. I knew that kif meant hash and the expression c'est kif-kif so having come across the phrase 'Fabien Barthez kiffe la vie' I'd always thought it meant 'take life as it comes' or to go through life as though you were stoned.

    Please could you explain the expression 'avoir les moules'. I know it means something like 'etre fachE' or 'en avoir marre' or 'avoir le cafard' but which is it and can it mean aything else? any idea where it comes from?
    Ha ha you mispelled the idiom, actually it's "avoir les boules" with a "b", instead you wrote "to have the mussles", your traductions are correct it means all the things you listed, but the most common is "to be angry". The explaination of this idiom is a bit complicate: basically it's a methaphore to say that when you're angry or severly upset your testicles go up to you throat, in addition when we use this expression we make a gesture like if we'd take this "balls"(=boules) from under our chin in our hands. There is another more politicaly correct explaination, the statement would be that when you're angry it may provoke a inflation of your ganglions (lympahtic glands).

    As the expression kif-kif (with only one "f") it apparently comes from arabic number 50 which is said "kif" (like the hash, but in a coincidence), therfore, the idiom "c'est kif-kif" means "it's striclty the same" but some people say when it comes to pay something, like restaurant bill "ok, on fait kit-kif" which means "OK let's pay 50% each"

    Even if we know the meaning of the word "kif" as hash, we don't use it in French slang we have instead words like "pot","tosh", "chichon", "beue"or "ganja", "weed" the 3 first are used for the resin and the others for weed or flower, they mostly come from foreign languages.

    Finally "kiffer" is to enjoy

    Nico
    Last edited by nicoloco; 09-07-2007 at 05:44 AM.
     
  7. birdman said:

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    Thanks Nico I think you're right. 'Avoir les moules' must be a (humourous) variation on 'avoir les boules'. It does exist though - Gainsbourg uses it in Brigade des stups and Relax baby be cool.

    According to my dictionary kif ultimately comes from the arab 'kaif' which means 'repos absolu observE par les Orientaux aux milieux des jours' or 'etat de beatitude'. There's a Russian word 'kayf' meaning a high which presumably comes from the same root.
     
  8. nicoloco said:

    Default kiffe

    Thanks for the infos !!!

    Nico
     
  9. valerie.web said:

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    Hi,
    if you want to make one step beyond… with french slang, you can also understand that in the common language the is not only SLANG but transformed WORDS by the street “Académie” (and not the one of the Académie française - - - > Le dictionnaire
    where you can find the updated official French DICTIONNAIRE « Exemples de mots introduits dans la neuvième édition » or Examples of words introduced into the ninth edition, new foreign words, abolished words…),
    but become acquainted to VERLAN.
    In VERLAN the syllables are inverted, the word verlan inverted become (phonetic) “l’anver”, …l’ envers or upside down.
    Not all phrases become inverted but only some tactical words, mixed with some argot words (slang), and “Green Language” (popular language), and last but not least the Phonetic intonation (see RAP culture). If you speak sharp Verlan, you are immediately classified like a dinosaur, in fact the Verlan emerged from the french suburbs in the early 1980s, and the street language is in continuous mutation.
    meuf - Femme (woman)
    keum - Mec (guy)
    ripou - Pourri (rotten, corrupt) (other meaning, corrupted cop)
    relou - Lourd (heavy, boring)
    chelou - Louche (weird)
    Se more at Verlan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Best regards… Valérie

    C’est ouf quoi!!!
    (That’s so crazy)…
     
  10. nicoloco said:

    Default French slang

    Thanks Velerie for your informations, here are my addings about popular French.

    French has three big categories of popular words
    -common popular words allowed in official dictionnaries such as Larousse or Robert (thus approuved by the "Académie Française"
    - green language: street-born words such as verlan and "popularized" words by odd transformation (ex: "prolo" for "proletarian)
    - corporate slang; popular word used and invented by few professionals (some invented their own languages like the Parisian butchers who used to speak the "Largonji" or the "Louchebem" a way to invert syllabs and add extra recurrent sounds into words, a bit like the pseudo Javanese coded languages).

    Slang was really born around 1900 in the streets, cabarets and brothels of Paris, precisely in the Montmartre sector (yup, the Amelie Poulain's place). Most of the slang of this time is very very old fashioned now but few words are still used nowadays and have entered in the Larousse for years.

    Right, the verlan is quiet a young thing (compared to the history of French) I remember the singer Renaud in the early 70' using words like "zomblou" (jacket), "laisse-bêton" for "laisse tomber" (give it up!) that make verlan very popular. verlan is the son of corporate jargons born around 1900 in Paris. To have a good demonstartion of the origins of French slang check Aristide Bruant lyrics, it's so full of slang that even mother tongue french are mixed-up with that stuff. ;-)

    The rap culture is now the guardian of the slang temple (lol) but the rap jargon or slang is a melting-pot of verlan, English and arabic . And yes, the words you listed are the most common, you may add "vénère", I hear that the whole day when i work with youngsters because thay keep on saying they are "vénères" (angry).

    nico

    In anyone of yours needs infos about French slang, i can help.

    Nico
     
  11. valerie.web said:

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    I'd never noticed that Serge Gainsbourg used "j'ai les moules"
    (nice thing birdman!)

    *** À la brigade des stups
    *** Idée fixe la chnouf
    *** J'ai les moules je flippe
    *** C'est pas mon genre de trip

    *** Le Klan le Klan la cagoule Relax baby be cool
    *** Ne t'en fais donc pas poupoule Relax baby be cool
    *** Pas de quoi avoir les moules Relax baby be cool

    mayby for by-passing the censorship ??!?

    like nicoloco... if I can help in anyway?