For French learners: You need to know that, unfortunately, the real world looks a bit different from what you learnt, more confusing and less structured with the use of slang. Here we will tell you why you must study slang, and you will learn 5 of the most used French slangs in everyday life and how to use them properly!

Slang is an aspect of language that isn’t usually taught in the classroom but is an important part of becoming proficient in any language. A person learning French might attend daily classes. They might study the grammar and the formalities and might even produce complex and coherent sentences. But, take this student out of the classroom and away from the textbooks, and they will encounter a world of language that breaks the rules they learned.

Although studying proper French rules is important, slang is unavoidable, no matter what language you’re speaking. In drama and music, conversations and advertising, language becomes less formal and goes less and less “by the rules”. Real-life French is so different from the textbooks.

Taking the time to understand slang and informal speech will boost your communication and language skills, and save a whole lot of confusion. Slang will allow you to use language in a current, useful way. No amount of time in class can prepare you for the contemporary nuances you’ll be faced with when you put your language knowledge to practical use out in the real world.

Click here to discover 10 monthly goals that will help you reach fluency in French!

It’s time to cover common French slang expressions that are used every day in France!

1. Vachement – really

The word vachement is a slang expression meaning “really.” You can use this expression when you want to emphasize something. It can be both used with positive or negative words. It is stronger than très (“very”). This expression is often used by young people.

Ce gâteau est vachement bon!
This cake is really good!

2. Etre bourré(e) – to be drunk

The phrase être bourré(e) literally means “to be stuffed.” But when it’s used as a slang expression, it means “be drunk.” You can use this expression when you want to talk about being drunk. This phrase is less formal than ivre and is mostly used with family or friends. This expression is often used by young people.

Tout le monde était bourré à la soirée d’hier.
Everyone was drunk at yesterday’s party.

3. Faire un tabac – to be a hit

The phrase faire un tabac literally means “make a tobacco.” But when it’s used as a slang expression, it means “to be a hit.” You can use this expression when you are talking about something that is a major success.This expression is used often by everyone.

Ce film a fait un tabac chez les jeunes.
This movie was a hit among young people.

For you French Learners, The 15 Best Tips to Remember French Words For FREE

4. Ne pas faire long feu – to not last long

The expression ne pas faire long feu literally means “not make long fire.” But when it’s used as a slang expression, it means “to not last long.”
You can use this expression when you talk about something that doesn’t last very long, or something that ends rapidly. It is often used when someone is about to go to bed, to insist that this person is so tired that she won’t make it much longer if she doesn’t go to bed ASAP. This expression is used often by everyone.

Mon appareil photo n’a plus de batterie, il ne va pas faire long feu.
My camera don’t have battery anymore; it won’t last much longer.

5. Piger – get

The word piger literally means “understand.” But when it’s used as a slang expression, it means “get.” You can use this expression when you are with your friends or family. It is stronger than the neutral word comprendre (“to understand” ) and has a negative connotation.
This expression is often used by young people.

Je n’ai rien pigé à ce qu’il a dit.
I didn’t get anything from what he said.

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Stuck in traffic? Losing time in your car? Have you ever felt that in all this wasted time, you could have watched the 750 episodes of One Piece, finished the last Super Mario ten times, or even better…you could have learned French? Between family, friends and work, in addition to this time-consuming commute, it can become difficult to find time to properly learn French.

Fortunately, every problem has a solution, and what could be a better solution than turning that commute time into learning time? Stop passing the time mindlessly listening to the radio and try some of our best tips for mastering French in your car!

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You can learn French in your car, hands free
While driving, it’s important that you keep your focus on the road, so this is why our top tips won’t require you to use your hands!

Listening to French audio content in the car is a good way to learn
This is because it is a fun and efficient way to learn. With FrenchPod101.com podcasts, you will be able to discover French culture through topics about everyday life. Instead of the radio, listen to a French podcast adapted to your level, from Absolute Beginner to Advanced, and you will make progress sooner that you would expect!

You can listen to French music in the car
Did you know that you can learn French by singing while driving? Listen to songs from cartoon or drama and try to identify some words you learned.

Challenge yourself! Use the French you’ve studied up to this point and see how much you understand! Making the jump to real-life French is a scary one, but friendly children’s songs are a great place to start!

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You can learn alone in your car
When you’re driving alone, you can be as loud as you want – there is nothing better for remembering your French lessons than repeating loudly, again and again. Next time you see a driver who seems to be talking alone, you will know he or she is just learning French!

You can learn through repetition with your passengers
If there are passengers in the car, it can be more stimulating to learn together. You can set a role play with French dialogues. With FrenchPod101.com, you can download all the lessons transcript including the dialogues, as a PDF. Print it out and have some fun speaking in French!

One of the passengers can answer the quiz available on each of our lessons, while another can correct that person. Listening to someone at a more advanced level of French or a better accent is positive and helps you improve.

You can learn French offline
Do you have a poor connection or are unable to use the Internet? It’s not a problem for learning French! Before you start your commute, use our App to download the lessons you want to study and the podcast you want to listen to in your car, and you will be able to enjoy your lessons offline. Entering a tunnel won’t be a problem anymore. What a pleasure to listen to audio content without having the host freezing every 5 seconds!

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You can learn every day at your own pace
One of the best approaches for learning a language is little by little and often. It’s not efficient to take in a huge amount of information at one time. What you need is to study on a regular basis – a little bit of French every day. You commute several days a week, and that is all time you can take advantage of!

You have the freedom to choose the lessons and podcasts you want to focus on, at your own rhythm. You may want to do a little revision or discover how to talk about a new topic. And if you’re wondering what to learn next, you can use the new Learning Paths, which is our customized pathway feature that gives you a step-by-step way to learn French without getting lost!

Click here to access Learning Paths at FrenchPod101!

If you don’t have a car and commute by another method, these tips are still valid! Learning French is no longer limited to the classroom or your house; there are so many benefits to learning in your car or elsewhere. Reaching a conversational level will take you less time than you could ever have imagined! Don’t forget to sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and enjoy our content!

Hey French learner!

We recently gave you some shortcuts to learn French.
In your journey to become fluent and conversational in less time that is needed to say “Gotta catch ’em all”, we will this time give you the Top 15 tips to remember words!

1. Use repetition: reading, writing and speaking words over and over again.

2. Associate words with drawings, pictures and funny scenes.

3. Try to use the language routinely in the context of daily life.

4. Reading as much as possible, especially the newspaper, helps you to remember words.

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5. Learn about the roots of words and how different words are related to each other.

6. Speak as often as possible with native speakers.

7. Categorize new words with other related words that you already know.

8. Be persistent in practicing everyday by talking to your family or your dog, even though they don’t understand you.

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9. Say words out loud so that you can actually hear them.

10. Associate new words with words that sound similar in your native language.

11. Listen to songs and memorize the lyrics.

12. Often watch TV or YouTube videos that are designed for young children.

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13. Associate new words with stories, games or movies.

14. Try to use the new word in a simple sentence so you learn whole phrases, not just individual words.

15. Try to think in French, so it becomes natural to your thought process.

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Phrase One: Ça va? Ça va. (‘How are you? I’m fine.’)

After greeting and saying hello to someone, you will need to ask how she or he is. It’s a matter of politeness.

The Question and Statement With ça and va:

While in France you’ll often hear these two sounds [sa-va], which are part of the phrase Ça va ?, meaning “How are you?”

Be aware though, these two tiny words can be either a question or a statement.

To differentiate between the two, you need to listen to the speaker’s intonation. When the intonation rises, it will be a question: Ça va ? (‘How are you?’) When the intonation is slightly falling or constant, it will be a statement: ça va (‘I’m fine’).

Phrase Two: S’il vous plaît. (‘Please’)

This phrase is a must for anyone who has de la galanterie (‘some courtesy’).

The original meaning of S’il vous plaît was not only to be polite but also to ask whomever you are speaking to whether he or she would be pleased to do a favor for you, such as answering a question or passing the salt at the table.

Formal “please”: S’íl vous plaît

You’ve guessed it: we use s’il vous plaît [see-voo-play] in French in formal situations or with people you are addressing using vous (the formal ‘you’). It simply means “please” in English.

Informal “please”: S’íl te plaît

If you’d like to say “please” with close friends, colleagues, in a relaxed context, or in short with people you talk to by using the informal personal pronoun tu, use s’íl te plaît [seel-tuh-play].

You are learning French, but aside from grammar and vocabulary, you feel challenged by the pronunciation. what is the key to making all those uniquely French sounds?

There are different categories of French sounds, and these the most unique ones to the language, and therefore, challenging. They are the following:

Voyelles orales (“oral vowels”)

• Voyelles antérieures (“front vowels”)

You produce them by placing your tongue to the front of your mouth, as in the English word “feet” and “stylo” (pen) in French.

• Voyelles centrales (“central vowels”)place the tongue in the middle of your mouth, as in “pure” and “lune”(moon) in French.
• Voyelles postérieures (“back vowels”)

place your tongue in the back of your mouth, as in “tourist” and “goûter“(“to taste”) in French.

Voyelles nasales (“nasal vowels”)
To make this sound, use the air passage through the nose and lower the soft palate while the air goes through the mouth; like in the French word “parfum” (perfume).

The Vibrante (“Vibrant”) “R”
This French sound is usually challenging. It is used for the letter “r” as in the French word “roue”(wheel), or butter in English. Remember that for this sound, To pronounce the letter –r in French, try to reproduce the sound of an angry growling dog. harden the rolling –gr sound to reproduce a nice French sound!
As you keep trying out, you will be discovering muscles you never knew you had! While learning French, you’re discovering your own anatomy!

Just as an engine helps a car move, mastering basic grammar helps you express yourself and communicate your ideas clearly. The more you know about the engine parts, the more you can improve your engine’s capacity. Similarly, the more youknow grammar, the better your French will be!

French grammar has the reputation of being boring and complicated, but it’s not so terrible. The main difficulties are the word genders and the conjugation system (shared by All romance languages). It is just a matter of remembering some basic rules that will reduce your chances of making the most common French grammar mistakes. The most common one is gender.

In French, all nouns have a gender, either masculine or feminine.
Here is a basic chart with noun endings for feminine and masculine nouns, but remember there are always exceptions!

Noun genders, though a difficult concept, is unavoidable to learn! Getting the gender of a word wrong can lead to confusion or worse; completely give a different meaning to your sentence. Keep in mind that it is just a matter of learning and perseverance. Like a car engine, learn the parts and how to use them for a smooth side!

You have been studying French for quite some time now…and you are doing such a fabulous job! However, if you are seated at the fancy French restaurant you have always wanted to try, and the waiter hands you a menu – completely in French – it could be quite confusing!

The French alphabet is pretty peculiar and a bit different from the English writing system. It includes some unfamiliar markings you may not recognize:

1) Diacritics, or accent marks that help denote the characteric French pronunciation and intonation of words. They include:

• The acute accent (l’accent aigu)             ‹´›
• The grave accent (l’accent grave)          ‹`›
• The cedilla (la cédille)                               ‹¸›
• The circumflex (l’accent circonflexe)     ‹ˆ›
• The diaeresis (le tréma)                           ‹¨›

2) Ligatures (æ and œ), which are obligatory contractions of ae and oe in certain French words (as in sœur, meaning “sister”)

Now, you may ask yourself why the need for these markings ?

It was actually  during the 16th century that accents began to appear. With the invention of the printing press, printers looked for ways to eliminate ambiguity and redundant letters. The solution to these problems was the use of accents and other markings. For example,before the cedilla was introduced, the soft “c” was printed as –ce-, –ss-, –ch– or just –c-.

So, the point of these accents is to clarify pronunciation and reading. Although at first it may seem confusing, the French writing system is like a map, so if you think about it this way and understand these ‘directions’, you will keep on your journey through French learning without missing a turn!

Quick recap from last week:

What would we do without French vowel sounds?  Well, the obvious answer is that we’d say a lot of consonants!  We’d end up sounding like a lot of other Eastern European languages rather than the mellifluous French language.This lesson takes a look at the nineteen vowel sounds in detail with some examples and practice exercises.  French vowel sounds are divided into three groups; Voyelles orales (“oral vowels”), Voyelles nasales (“nasal vowels”), Semi-voyelles (“half vowels”).  Part 2 of this lesson summary will focus on the last two groups of French vowels; Voyelles nasales (“nasal vowels”), Semi-voyelles (“half vowels”).

• Voyelles nasales (“nasal vowels”):These vowels are specific to French as the passage of the air goes mainly through the nose. For foreign ears, they may seem very strange at first, as the air vibrates mainly through the nose and produces a twangy sound.

• • Practice Exercise:Listen to the audio for the words pin, pan, and pont in the vocabulary section and repeat them several times.

• Semi-voyelles (“half vowels”):Semi-voyelles are also called semi-consonnes (“half consonants”). They are unique sounds between vowels and consonants that occur when two vowels follow each other in one syllable of a word, such as in balayer, meaning “to sweep” (example of the phonetic sound symbol [J]). Another example is the pronunciation of the letters –oi, which are pronounced in English [woa], as in the French word poisson (“fish”).

• • Practice Exercise: Repeat and practice all the half vowels in this sentence; Le soleil luit pour Louis en juin.(The sun shines for Louis in June.) Can you recognize the three half-vowel sounds in this sentence?

What would we do without French vowel sounds?  Well, the obvious answer is that we’d say a lot of consonants!  We’d end up sounding like a lot of other Eastern European languages rather than the mellifluous French language.  This lesson takes a look at the nineteen vowel sounds in detail with some examples and practice exercises. French vowel sounds are divided into three groups; Voyelles orales (“oral vowels”), Voyelles nasales (“nasal vowels”), Semi-voyelles (“half vowels”).  Part 1 of this lesson summary will focus on the first group mentioned, voelles orales, and its subgroups.

Voyelles orales (“oral vowels”) are vowels we pronounce by air going through the mouth area and where the tongue, uvula, and lips will have a certain position. There are twelve oral vowels, which we classify in three categories according to their pronunciation.

• Voyelles antérieures (“front vowels”): Voyelles antérieures are characterized by the placement of the tongue toward the front of the mouth. For example, try to pronounce the letter -è as in prey, producing an anterior vowel, and the letter -o as in orange, producing a posterior vowel. Notice the placement of your tongue in your mouth.

• • Practice Exercise:  Pronounce these pairs and tell whether their sounds are identical or not; (met [may]/mais [meh]) (lait [lay]/ les [leh]) (trait [tray]/ très [tray])

• Voyelles centrales (“central vowels”):To pronounce properly the voyelles centrales, place your tongue in the middle area of your mouth. These sounds are very similar to the ear and may be difficult to distinguish, even for a native speaker of French. Their main difference while pronouncing them is the opening gap of the mouth, creating a more or less open sound.

• • Practice Exercise: Practice the pronunciation of the following vowels;(refaire [r-uh-fer] / zèbre [zaybr] / crier [kri-ay])（clair [kler] / petit [puh-ti] / écoute [eh-ku-t])　(peine [pe-n] / debout [duh-bu] / liez [li-eh])

• Voyelles postérieures (“back vowels”): To produce this type of sound, place your tongue in the back of your mouth. In other words, position the larger part of your tongue (the back part) toward the back of the mouth cavity.

Practice Exercise: Repeat these words several times: riz, pâte, rat.  What happens?