Random observations in French while sitting in a café (#678)

2 September 2013 by OffQc

I’m in a café. There’s free WiFi here, or WiFi gratuit.

In Québec, the pronunciation of WiFi follows the English pronunciation.

There’s a kid near me reading a Wikipédia article on his laptop about le bouclier canadien, the Canadian Shield.

In Québec, the adjective canadien is dzidzuated. It’s pronounced ca-na-dzien.

Wikipédia is also dzidzuated. It’s pronounced wi-ki-pé-dzia.

I’m looking out the window. It looks like it’s going to rain.

The verb “to rain” is pleuvoir in French. You’ll also sometimes hear it said as mouiller in Québec.

Il pleut and il mouille mean the same thing. If you hear someone say y mouille, that’s an informal pronunciation of il mouille.

Today is Labour Day, la fête du Travail.

on 2 September 2013 at 18:47 GinaC

Thanks so much – feel more confident learning the vernacular!
on 3 September 2013 at 05:36 Gene

Please keep the observations coming. This is great stuff you can’t get anywhere else.
on 6 September 2013 at 13:04 B

What’s dzidzuated?
- on 6 September 2013 at 13:32 OffQc
  
  I’m glad you asked. 🙂
  
  The letter d is pronounced dz before the French i and u sounds. So I made up the word dzidzu to help you remember it.
  
  There’s are lots of examples of it on the blog, like here:
  
  https://offqc.com/2012/02/06/le-dzidzu-le-tsitsu/
  
  For example, dire is pronounced dzire in Québec, and perdu is pronounced perdzu.

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OffQc | Québécois French Guide