French Slang Secrets: Speak Like a True Parisian!

To sound like a native French speaker using slang and colloquial expressions, it is essential to understand key common phrases and the general style of informal French, often called “argot.” French slang is rich and varies by region and social context, especially among youth. Here are some important points and examples:

Common French Slang and Colloquial Phrases

• Salut / Ça roule ? — Informal greetings like “Hi” or “How’s it going?”
• Bof — An expression of indifference, like “meh.”
• Ouf — Crazy or amazing (verlan slang, inverted syllables).
• Mec / Meuf — Guy / Girl (informal).
• Kiffer — To like or love something.
• Relou — Annoying or heavy (verlan of “lourd”).
• Chiant — Annoying or boring.
• Trop — Means “too much,” used to emphasize like “really” or “so.”
• T’es sérieux ? — Are you serious? (informal disbelief).

Tips to Sound Natural

• Use verlan, a kind of French slang involving syllable inversion, popular particularly among young French speakers (e.g., “meuf” for “femme” (woman), “keuf” for “flic” (cop)).
• Employ casual fillers and interjections like tu vois (“you see”) in conversation.
• Drop or contract some sounds and syllables as in everyday speech.
• Learn common idiomatic expressions and phraseological units that carry tone and cultural nuance.
• Observe tone, rhythm, and non-verbal cues that accompany slang words during interactions.

Cultural Notes

• Slang heavily depends on the speaker’s age, region, and social group.
• French slang evolves quickly, so staying updated with current youth slang is helpful.
• Some slang terms can be offensive or rude depending on the context, so it’s important to be mindful of appropriateness.

This kind of knowledge will help anyone blend in conversationally and sound like a native French speaker when using slang and colloquial expressions.

References

• Street French: How to Speak and Understand French Slang

• Catégorisations lexicographiques et représentations des locuteurs natifs: le cas du lexique substandard dans Kiffe kiffe demain de Faiza Guene

• L’argot: Code, jargon ou poésie ?

• Elaboration of an empirical basis for the web-based mapping of French common youth slang

• Variation, birth, and death of some slang expressions in the Onitsha environment

• Geese, planks and sluts: Semantic derogation of women in French and Serbian slang

• Crocodiles, pallettari, limeurs and arrotini: The Cultural Charge of the Slang Terms of the Tennis Lexicon in French and Italian Sports Dictionaries

• Semantic Similarity of Common Verbal Expressions in Older Adults through a Pre-Trained Model

• A Study of Vietnamese Slang Used by Students in Daily Conversations

• Actualization of Game Slang Usage in Videogame Localization

• V Index alphabétique des adjectifs-adverbes

• Humorous phraseologisms - as a tool offunny assessment of real events (in French material)

• Multimodal Practice for Mobilizing Response: The Case of Turn-Final Tu Vois ‘You See’ in French Talk-in-Interaction

• Techniques d’abréviation dans les webchats francophones

• Compounds and multi-word expressions in French

• Analyse phraséoculturelle contrastive : représentation et motivation du coeur en français et en chinois

• A Computational Framework for Slang Generation

• SlangSD: Building and Using a Sentiment Dictionary of Slang Words for Short-Text Sentiment Classification

• ANGLICISMS IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE: LINGUISTIC AND SOCIAL ASPECTS

• The hidden dimensions of a change from below: Consequence markers in Montreal French