If someone’s talking to you in a bad way, have you learned how to tell them to stop talking to you like that?
Ne me parle pas comme ça!
Do not talk to me like that!
That works, but during informal conversations in French, you might hear it said like this instead:
Parle-moi pas comme ça!
Don’t talk to me like that!
This form is just parle-moi comme ça with pas added in. (Parle-moi comme ça! Parle-moi pas comme ça!)
In a scene from 30 vies, a mother is having an argument with her son. When she doesn’t like what her son says to her, she blurts out:
Parle-moi pas comme ça!
The form parle-moi pas comme ça is used at an informal level only.
On your French test at night school, your instructor will expect you to use ne me parle pas comme ça. That’s also the form that’s used in carefully written or spoken French.
But after class during an argument with your québécois boyfriend or girlfriend, go ahead and use parle-moi pas comme ça if you want to defend yourself in French that sounds less stiff!
[Quote from 30 vies, season 2, episode 62, Radio-Canada, Montreal, 10 January 2012.]
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