In the summer months, representatives from different charities take the streets of downtown Montreal by storm.
These representatives can be found on many street corners, looking for people interested in their cause. Some passers-by stop to talk to them, while others avoid them and just keep on walking.
While walking down Sainte-Catherine Street, a group of three people in their 20s walked ahead of me — two guys and a girl. A representative from a charity approached the girl, and she stopped unwillingly to speak to him.
Her two friends kept on walking, leaving her behind. They laughed at how she got “stuck” speaking to the representative.
Frustrated that her friends had left her behind (and eager to free herself of the representative), she called out to her friends to not leave her alone. That’s when the representative himself encouraged her two male friends to come back by saying:
Venez-vous-en, les boys!
Come here, guys!
They kept their distance though, and they let their friend get out of the conversation on her own…
venez-vous-en!
viens-t’en!
come here!
And the opposite:
allez-vous-en!
va-t’en!
go away!
Remember, there’s a liaison between vous and en, so the vous forms sound like this:
venez vou zen
allez vou zen
The representative also used the informal les boys to call out to the guys. The s in boys is pronounced z, just like in English.
