Your Go-To Guide for Texting in French: Navigate Informal Communication and Abbreviations

Texting in French, especially informal communication, often involves various abbreviations and shorthand forms to save time and effort. French text messaging language (often called SMS-speak or “texto”) uses a mix of phonetic shortcuts, acronyms, and truncations similar to other languages. Some common features include:

• Dropping vowels or syllables for brevity (e.g., “slt” for salut, “pk” for pique meaning why)
• Using numbers or letters to represent sounds or parts of words (e.g., “2m1” representing demain, “a+” for à plus tard meaning see you later)
• Shortened common expressions, like “bjr” for bonjour, “merci” often stays the same or shortened as “mci”
• Use of informal pronouns and verbs (e.g., “t” for tu, “c” for c’est)
• Frequent omission of accents and punctuation to speed up typing

These conventions are usually highly context-dependent and evolve with younger users adopting and adapting new forms regularly. The main goal is rapid, informal communication and often follows spoken language patterns more than formal written French.

If interested, I can provide a list of the most popular texting abbreviations and informal expressions used in French texting. Would that be helpful?

References

• Emoticon and Text Production in First and Second Languages in Informal Text Communication

• MEDİA MÜHİTİNDƏ HÜQUQŞÜNASLARIN YENİ PROFESSİONAL ÜNSİYYƏT FORMALARI (Müasir fransız dilinin materialları əsasında)

• Harnessing the Power of Informal Learning: Using WeChat, the Semi-Synchronous Group Chat, to Enhance Spoken Fluency in Chinese Learners.

• Synthetic Data Generation and Joint Learning for Robust Code-Mixed Translation

• Book Review: Romans

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• The Terms of “You(s)”: How the Term of Address Used by Conversational Agents Influences User Evaluations in French and German Linguaculture