OffQc | Québécois French Guide

I watched the first 10 minutes of an episode of 30 vies on tou.tv and picked some French for us to look at.

Each example of French below was said by a character on the show. If you want to find them on the show, the episode details are at the end of the post. After each quote, I’ve included the time where it appeared.

You can watch 30 vies on tou.tv if you’re in Canada.

Là, tu fais ça ou tu disparais de ma vie. C’est-tu clair?
Now you’re gonna do it or you get out of my life. Is that clear?
(0:22)

We’ve been seeing in the last few entries that là often means “now.” Here’s another example of it. Here, it means more “now” in the sense of “right so,” as a way of signalling that the other person ought to listen up. The speaker used it to lead into her nasty comment.

We’ve also got c’est-tu clair? in this quote. Remember, the informal tu transforms c’est clair into a yes-no question. C’est clair. C’est-tu clair?

The question c’est-tu clair? here is really a warning. It’s like asking “is that understood?” in an authoritative way.

— Ça parle de toi en masse.
— Qui ça?
— People are totally talking about you.
— Who?
(6:55)

A student at school told his classmate: ça parle de toi en masse. The subject ça here just means “people” or “they.” It’s like the subject on. The expression en masse means something like “big time” or “totally.”

Notice that his classmate responded with qui ça? to ask who. You’ll also hear people say où ça? to ask where, for example: –Viens-tu avec moi? –Où ça?

J’en peux p’us. J’sus à boutte!
I can’t take it anymore. I’ve had it!
(7:53)

J’en peux p’us is a shortened, colloquial way of saying je n’en peux plus. Plus here is pronounced plu, but sometimes plus gets shortened to the pronunciation pu, which I’ve spelled above as p’us. It’s because the L dropped.

J’sus (pronounced chu) means je suis. J’sus à boutte literally means “I’m at the end,” because boutte means bout, but its figurative meaning is “I’ve had it.” You’ll notice that bout is sometimes pronounced boutte in Québec, especially in informal expressions like the one here; être à boutte, to have had it, to be fed up.

The character who said j’sus à boutte didn’t pronounce it as chu à boutte though. She pronounced it instead as chtàboutte. She shortened chu to ch and slipped in a T sound between ch and à (ch-t-à boutte).

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Quotes taken from:
30 vies, saison 5, épisode 24
16 octobre 2014, Radio-Canada