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« More overheard French from Montréal + a listening recommendation (#684)
Asking “can you hear me?” when speaking in French on the phone (#686) »

Malade, écoeurant, méchant — 3 words with double meanings in French (#685)

28 September 2013 by OffQc

Méchant beau char

Méchant beau char

In entry #684, a girl exclaimed celui-là est malade! as she pointed to a famous building made of Mega Bloks at a centre d’achats (shopping centre).

Although the literal meaning of malade is “sick,” it meant “awesome” or “amazing” when the girl used it to describe the Mega Bloks display.

Way back in entry #267, Hugo from the television show La Galère uses the word écoeurant to describe his new appart (informal word for “apartment” which sounds like the English word “apart”).

The literal meaning of écoeurant is disgusting, but this word can also take on the meaning “awesome” or “amazing.” So when Hugo says that his appart is écoeurant, he means that it’s amazing… not disgusting!

In La Galère, Hugo also says that he’s going to get une job écoeurante, “an amazing job.”

Ken asks whether méchant has this double meaning as well. Recently, I saw a sign for a lost dog in my neighbourhood. The owner of the dog was offering une méchante grosse récompense to the person who could return his dog to him.

The literal meaning of méchant is “wicked,” but, on the sign for the lost dog, it takes on a positive sense (an amazingly big reward, a wicked big reward).

Celui-là est malade!
That one’s awesome!

un appart écoeurant
an awesome apartment
(and not “a disgusting apartment”)

une job écoeurante
an amazing job
(and not “a disgusting job”)

une méchante grosse récompense
an amazingly big reward

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Posted in Entries #651-700 | Tagged amazing, appart, appartement, awesome, écoeurant, centre d'achats, chien, dog, double meaning, français québécois, malade, méchant, méchant beau char, méchante grosse récompense, Québécois French, récompense | 2 Comments

2 Responses

  1. on 28 September 2013 at 15:54 Angela Highland (Angela Korra'ti)

    Interesting–“wicked” and “sick” are both certainly words with similar double meanings in English, too!


  2. on 29 September 2013 at 08:07 Ken Breadner

    But I haven’t heard an English person say ‘disgusting’ and mean ‘amazing’…yet… Merci, c’est très intéressant.



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