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« Getting it right: using POGNER in Québécois French (#846)
Improve your pronunciation of Québécois French (#848) »

Do you understand this informal contraction in French? (#847)

8 September 2014 by OffQc

At a restaurant, I found a pair of keys at the counter. I picked them up and asked a man beside me if they were his. He said he had in fact seen the keys sitting there on the counter before, but they weren’t his.

He said:

Ah! j’es ai vues tantôt.
Oh, I saw ’em before!

What’s going on in this sentence?

First, here’s what it sounds like: jé zé vu tan tô.

What happened here is les got shortened to ‘es. It lost its first letter. It’s not so strange; that happens in English too: “I saw ’em.”

les = them
‘es = ’em

je les ai vues
(sounds like je lé zé vu)
I saw them

j’es ai vues
(sounds like jé zé vu)
I saw ’em

Contracting les to ‘es like this is an informal feature only, just like dropping the “th” in “them.” You don’t have to adopt this feature yourself when you speak, but you do need to recognise it.

What about tantôt?

This is a very useful word. It’s used to refer to a moment in the near past or in the near future.

Désolé pour tantôt.
Sorry about earlier on.
Sorry for what happened earlier on.

Merci pour tantôt.
Thanks for earlier on.
Thanks for what you did earlier on.

Tantôt tu disais que…
You were just saying how…
You just finished saying how…

À tantôt!
See you in a bit!

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Posted in Entries #801-850 | Tagged 'es, français québécois, prononciation, pronunciation, Québécois French, tantôt | 9 Comments

9 Responses

  1. on 8 September 2014 at 13:20 David

    Dude you’re the best!!! This is exactly the kind of informal French from Québec that I want to learn.


    • on 8 September 2014 at 15:39 OffQc

      Good, I’m very happy to know it!


  2. on 8 September 2014 at 15:38 Michael

    As-tu déjà écrit un poste sur le phénomène de dire “qu’est-ce que” où l’on devrait dire “ce que” ? J’en voudrais voir un. Merci. Super blog, ça me fait plaisir de te lire.


    • on 8 September 2014 at 15:41 OffQc

      OK, c’est noté!


  3. on 8 September 2014 at 18:51 Catherine Novak

    Il me semble que ‘tantôt’ est n’est pas du français formel mais plutôt régional. Pour certaines personnes, ‘tantôt’ aurait une tendance à marquer péjorativement la classe sociale de la personne qui l’utilise .


  4. on 8 September 2014 at 18:52 Catherine Novak

    je voulais préciser en français de France!


    • on 8 September 2014 at 19:00 OffQc

      Intéressant. L’usage de «tantôt» n’est pas stigmatisé au Québec.


  5. on 9 September 2014 at 00:09 Freddy

    Felix all I can tell you is well done dude , you’re the best ever. offqc is the best site to refer to for me and many others .. keep up the great job


    • on 9 September 2014 at 00:16 OffQc

      😀 Hey, thanks, Freddy!



Comments are closed.

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