Photo not taken today, but that’s pretty much what things looked like this morning… 😦
I kept my ears open today… here’s some overheard French from around Montréal!
Ben voyons don’! Ayoye! Comment ça?
Oh come on! Ouch! How’s that?
A woman walking past me talking into her phone said this all at once. The expression ben voyons don’ or just voyons don’ shows surprise. Don’ comes from donc, but the c isn’t pronounced here. Depending on the context, (ben) voyons don’ can mean oh come on!, come off it!, what?!, for real?, etc.
We can translate ayoye as ouch. It can show surprise or pain. Transcribed in IPA, it’s pronounced [ajɔj].
Comment ça? means how’s that? how’s that possible?, etc.
Hier, y mouillait.
Yesterday, it was raining.
Montréal got a new snowfall today. A man talked about how just yesterday it was raining. He used the verb mouiller. Y mouillait means it was raining, where y is an informal pronunciation of il.
Tu veux t’asseoir où, toi?
Where do you want to sit?
A mother asked her child where he wanted to sit down. This was how she asked. She put the question word où at the end.
Je vais aller chercher des napkins.
I’m going to go get napkins, serviettes.
The same mother then said she was going to go get napkins or serviettes. Napkin is used in the feminine. It’s pronounced as in English, but with the stress on the final syllable. The s isn’t pronounced in the plural.
C’est quinze minutes de marche.
It’s a fifteen-minute walk.
A man said this to a woman he was accompanying.
How do you spell “ayoye”? Numerous choices: http://oreilletendue.com/2012/04/10/ayoye/
I love that you use everyday words and expressions that you hear on the street. Learning from a tutorial book is fine for proper grammar, and all, but I like to learn the common, everyday speaking as well. Merci.
I find it ironic that napkin is used in French when the presumably French “serviette” still has a fair amount of usage in Canadian English. The paper product aisle at my supermarket even has “serviettes” on the sign.