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« 3 French usages heard on a Montréal radio show (#995)
A look at the Québécois use of BOQUÉ in the sense of stubborn (#997) »

2 important uses of the French PARCE QUE to learn (#996)

7 August 2015 by OffQc

Here’s a usage that came up in a conversation that you’ll want to learn:

PARCE QUE… PIS QUE…

parce que… pis que…
because… and because…

For example:

Je l’ai acheté parce que c’est bon pis que c’est bio.
I bought it because it’s good and because it’s organic.

The que of parce que is repeated after pis in the example above:
parce que c’est bon pis que c’est bio

The informal pis sounds like pi. It means and here, and it occurs very frequently in spoken language. In the example above, it’s possible to say et instead of pis, of course.

Je l’ai acheté parce que c’est bon et que c’est bio.
I bought it because it’s good and because it’s organic.

On this page of the BDL, there’s a description of this repetition of que, which occurs to avoid changing the sense of a sentence. It can occur elsewhere, like with quand: Quand tu seras grand et que tu travailleras, tu pourras t’acheter une auto. When you’re grown up and (when) you work, you can buy a car.

In parce que c’est bon pis que c’est bio, if you leave out the second que, then c’est bio is no longer attached to parce que.

While we’re on the topic of parce que, there’s another turn of phrase I’d like to point out because I’m sure you’ll want to learn it:

C’EST PAS PARCE QUE… QUE…

C’est pas parce que… que…
Just because… doesn’t mean that…

C’est pas parce que t’as une opinion que t’as raison.
Just because you’ve got an opinion doesn’t mean you’re right.

C’est pas parce que tout le monde fait ça que c’est correct.
Just because everyone does that doesn’t mean it’s okay.

C’est pas parce que ça sent pas mauvais que c’est encore bon.
Just because it doesn’t smell bad doesn’t mean it’s still good.

C’est pas is an informal equivalent of ce n’est pas, so c’est pas parce que is an informal equivalent of ce n’est pas parce que. Colloquial usage prefers c’est pas parce que.

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Posted in Entries #951-1000 | Tagged bio, français québécois, parce que, pis, Québécois French | 2 Comments

2 Responses

  1. on 7 August 2015 at 18:13 Rob

    Est-ce que pis que est un usage Québécois seulement?

    Merci
    Rob


    • on 7 August 2015 at 18:29 OffQc

      «Pis» (contraction familière de «puis») est un usage québécois, donc «pis que» l’est aussi.



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