Say this French verb out loud or in your head: pelter. It sounds like pelté, right? Good. Now say it seven more times:
pelter, pelter, pelter, pelter, pelter, pelter, pelter
OK. That verb means “to shovel (the snow)” in French. Except it’s not really spelled pelter. It’s spelled pelleter. (I thought the letter e in the middle might make you mispronounce the verb! Just two syllables: pel-ter.)
pelleter les marches
to shovel the steps
pelleter les marches en avant
to shovel the front steps
pelleter l’entrée
to shovel the driveway
In a scene from the TV series Les Parent, Louis tries to get at least one of his sons to agree to shovel the front steps this winter. The boys are sitting in front of the TV in the living room. Louis comes walking in and asks:
OK, les boys! Lequel de vous deux veut prendre le contrat pour pelleter les marches en avant cette année?
His sons are willing to do it — it’s easy money. Their father offers to pay them five dollars each time they do it. But that’s when the older son Olivier starts to negotiate with his father. (He’s a troublemaker.)
Olivier starts doing calculations, explanations, justifications, and he thinks he’s been smart enough to get more like twenty dollars out of his father. He’s proud of himself for being so cunning.
But not so quick — Olivier’s best friend then marches into the living room. The father decides to try his luck with Olivier’s best friend instead, who might turn out to be cheaper labour than his sons. He asks him:
Ça t’intéresserait-tu de pelleter les marches cet hiver à cinq piasses la shot?
In other words: “Would it interest you to shovel the steps this winter for five bucks a shot?”
The best friend accepts immediately (five dollars to clear the steps is easy money!), and the two sons realise that they’ve lost their contract with their father this winter…
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Notes:
The subject in the second quote isn’t tu, it’s ça. The -tu here is an informal yes-no question marker.
Shot is an informal usage only; it’s pronounced like chotte.
You can learn about the conjugations of pelleter here. For speaking, don’t worry too much about this. Just learn to say these models: Je vais pelleter l’entrée. As-tu pelleté l’entrée? Je pelte l’entrée. I think that covers you for most shovelling situations!
[Both quotes from the series Les Parent, “Noël emballant,” season 4, episode 11, Radio-Canada, Montreal, 21 November 2011.]
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