Thomas is a typical teen — he’s very concerned with his appearance. He’s standing in front of his bedroom mirror checking out how he looks, turning from side to side, unconvinced.
That’s when his younger brother Olivier walks into the room, frustrated. Olivier wants to know what’s taking Thomas so long to get ready; everybody’s waiting for him so that they can leave. Olivier loses patience and says to his brother:
Qu’est-ce tu gosses, Thomas?! Envoye!* Grouille!
What the heck are you doin’, Thomas?! Come on! Hurry up![Said by the character Olivier in Les Parent, “La réalité dépasse la friction,” season 3, episode 12, Radio-Canada, Montreal, 17 January 2011.]
*Sounds like en-wéy.
Lots of informal language in this example!
Gosser can take on different meanings in the informal French of Quebec. Here, it’s used in the sense of “to (needlessly) busy away at something.” Thomas is wasting time by staring in the mirror, trying to look just right. The verb gosser has other meanings as well, but let’s just stick with this one for now.
The question started with qu’est-ce (sounds like “kess”). Sometimes, qu’est-ce que gets shortened to qu’est-ce when speaking informally.
Both envoye and grouille mean “come on!” or “hurry up!” Envoye is pronounced en-wéy. It’s sometimes also spelt as anweille or enweille. Grouille is pronounced grou-iy.
By the way, Thomas is pronounced to-mâ.