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Understand 2 contractions in colloquial Québécois French (#851)

12 September 2014 by OffQc

Check out the text on this sign in a Montréal street promoting a beer:

Pas besoin d’avoir 56 sortes de verres, est bonne direct dans bouteille.
No need for 56 kinds of glasses, it’s good straight from the bottle.

Hmm. Aren’t there are few words missing in the French text?

Why does it say est bonne instead of elle est bonne? Where’s the subject?

And why does it say dans bouteille instead of dans la bouteille? Where did the la go?

Did they run out of room on the sign? No, it’s got nothing to do with that.

The authors have chosen to use an informal style of French here. It sounds the way someone might say it in a real conversation.

elle est bonne
‘est bonne (informal usage)

dans la bouteille
dans’ bouteille (informal usage)

What’s going on in those informal versions? Contractions, that’s what!

When elle and est come together, you’ll notice they sometimes contract to ‘est. It sounds like è.

Similarly, when dans and la come together, you’ll notice they tend to contract to dans’.

T’es dans’ marde!
[tu es dans la marde]
You’re screwed now!

Y m’a ri dans’ face.
[il m’a ri dans la face]
He laughed in my face.

‘Est don’ ben belle.
[elle est donc bien belle]
She’s so pretty.

There’s one more bit of text down at the bottom of the sign:

La bière sérieuse qui se prend pas au sérieux.
A serious beer that doesn’t take itself seriously.

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Posted in Entries #851-900 | Tagged dans la, elle est, français québécois, Québécois French | 2 Comments

2 Responses

  1. on 17 September 2014 at 11:39 Chris Clancy

    Hi Felix, I find this very helpful in my comprehension of the Quebecois Francais.I was born in Quebec and can still retain the accent when I try to speak French. However, my grammar is bad and my command of the tenses is poor. Is there a Quebecois language book that I can buy to help me become seriously competent and fluent. Does Rosetta Stone have a Quebecoise version?


    • on 19 September 2014 at 15:12 OffQc

      I’m not aware of a Québécois version of any the large language programmes. If you really want to study grammar, I can suggest that you take individual sentences from your readings or conversations and really look at how they’re constructed. I think this is much better than studying grammar from a grammar book. Remember, every time you read or listen to French, you’re learning grammar.



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