During a conversation, a man said in French an equivalent of “I’m not really bothered by it.”
(For example, imagine you’d just bought a shirt or some other item and there was a small defect in it, but nothing so great that you felt the need to return it. You might say “I’m not really bothered by it” in this situation.)
Can you guess how the man managed to render the idea of not really here without using pas vraiment?
Here’s what he said:
Ça m’dérange pas tant qu’ça.
I’m not really bothered by it.
I’m not bothered by it so much.
I’m not too bothered by it.
In pas tant qu’ça (contracted form of pas tant que ça), que loses its vowel sound. The contracted qu’ sounds like a k. To say pas tant qu’ça, first say pas, then say tant with a k sound on the end of it, then say ça. The contracted pas tant qu’ça has three syllables: pas / tan’qu’ / ça.
— C’est l’fun, hein?
— Pas tant qu’ça!
— It’s fun, huh?
— Not really! Not particularly!
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The OffQc book Contracted French takes a detailed look at high-frequency contracted forms similar to the ones above (ça m’dérange pas, c’est l’fun, pas tant qu’ça) and helps you pronounce them like a native speaker. You can buy and download it here.
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