How to say “You’re fucking cute.” and “You’re so fucking cute.”

Question

I want to say “You’re fucking cute.” and You’re so fucking cute.” in french.

I learnt from this article that « putain de » precedes a noun and is roughly equivalent to the word “fucking” when it’s being used as an adjective. So, "Ma putain de voiture est si belle" means my “My fucking car is so beautiful.”

But the word “cute” is an adjective not a noun. So how do I say the sentence “You’re fucking cute” and “You’re so fucking cute.”?

Ideally, I’m looking for a construction in which the whole of France can understand not just a construction only a specific region of France can understand. :)

Also, I would like to say that the function of fucking here is just to inform the listener that he/she is cute to a very high degree. This isn’t offensive. Whether this statement is offensive, as with all statements, depends on who’s saying it, who’s it being said to as well as the place and time it is being said. I was watching a movie in which the wife said this to her husband who was feeling self-conscious. I wanted to know if a similar thing exists in French.

Answer 1

As you said, before a noun:

My fucking car is so beautiful!

Ma putain de voiture est tellement belle !

Before an adjective:

My car is so fucking beautiful!

Ma voiture est putain de belle !

As you can see I removed the word tellement because it's more natural this way, but you could say est tellement putain de belle or est putain de tellement belle.

Now I'd say it's not very common to use this formulation before an adjective, at least not as common as using it before a noun. I would rather say Ma voiture est tellement belle, putain !.

It's possible before an adverb too, and similarly to before an adjective, I'd say it's not the most natural way:

My car is moving so fucking slowly!

Ma voiture avance (tellement) putain de lentement !

I'd rather say Ma voiture avance tellement lentement, putain !

Answer 2

I think that using a "suitable" emphasizing/emphatic adverb constructed with the usual "ment" suffix would sound smoother than "putain de" and better avoid any possible implication that the recipient of your complement has "whorish" qualities.

"Sacrément" or one of the synonyms (especially, but not necessarily the vulgar one) for it mentioned in the linked TLFi/CNRTL entry might work:

SACRÉMENT, adv.,
...
DÉR.
Sacrément, adv.,pop. Tout à fait, extrêmement. Synon. bigrement (fam.), bougrement (fam.), diablement (fam.), foutrement (vulg.), vachement (pop.).

"T'es sacrément/foutrement/vachement/(>>>) belle/beau/mignonne/mignon, toi"

(>>> You could also consider "fichtrement", in my opinion.)

Answer 3

Putain est certainement utile dans bien des contextes en français métropolitain, entre autres, et l'adverbe tellement peut en effet exprimer le haut degré.

En français du Québec/Canada le l'adjectif maudit peut servir à accentuer et on a l'adverbe mauditement, mais on est loin du compte en ce qui a trait au niveau de vulgarité. On peut possiblement recourir au sacre directement, en locution adverbiale avec en (en... crisse, tabarnac, sacrament, etc. : beaucoup sont identifiés comme vulgaires par Wiktionnaire) ; l'adverbe crissement est usuel.

Cette personne est belle en maudit/crisse¹.
Cette personne est mauditement/crissement belle.

_{¹ Dans un cadre où la syntaxe est très relâchée, il peut y avoir confusion possible entre le haut degré/locution adverbiale et une réduction d'une locution verbale ou d'un emploi différent, « quand elle est en crisse/maudit » (en colère).}

Answer 4

In Southern France, at least in Marseille's area, you might hear:

Tu es putain qué jolie/mignonne/belle !

Qué being a remnant of Occitan.

Otherwise, this would work all over France:

Putain, que tu es mignonne !

Answer 5

I You can use that most successful of intensifiers even with an adjective; there is a clear tendency though: the adjective shouldn't be of that sort that shows a quality and should be of the disapproving kind. There is a range of moods associated with such elocutionary behaviour, from grudgingly friendly to downright mean. It should be known that whatever the attitude, using this term makes for language of a very inferior quality, not at all advised to speakers that want to preserve their French a clean language; all of this that follows in the examples is utterly coarse.

• Mais t'es putain de têtu, comment je vais te faire comprendre ? (recollections)

• Elle est si putain de [bête (rare)/con] qu'elle fout du fromage dans son thé. (recollections)

However, the rule concerning the disapproving character of the adjective is not a hard and fast one;

• C'est si putain de bon qu'ils se mettent à quatre pattes pour le boire dans la mare du tonneau renversé. (quasi recollections)

• Elle est si putain de grande que ses genoux se voient au-dessus du tableau de bord. (quasi recollections)

I wouldn't know about "cute" (mignonne); it seems I never heard such a combination of ideas, which amounts to the crudest of terms being allied to one expressing the most delicate and divine perception in order to connote a high degree of the quality.

II This usage is rather rare in print, where for the quasi totality of the uses of "putain de" the complement is a noun. Personally, I think that this "pioneering" English usage itself (fucking cute) goes one degree further in the way of making for an unnatural and contrived language.

Answer 6

cute can be use everywhere beautiful is used, with one condition : this must be an animal, a human, ... so something that live. Also, with cute/beautiful, we would prefer to translate it as tellement instead of putain, which is really familiar (and can be insulting).

A car didn't live (only mechanic and electronic), so you can't use cute in that case. But for a cat, you can use both.

In french, that's not a problem, both belle and jolie (both refered to beautiful) can be used for tools, plants or animals. But cute would more refered to mignon.

Examples : about a draw :

• in english, I would say My draw is fucking beautiful, a masterpiece !
• in french, we could say Mon dessin est tellement joli / beau, un chef d'oeuvre

about a baby :

• in english : That baby is so fucking cute, he grabbed my hand.
• in french : Ce bébé est tellement mignon, il a attrapé ma main.

NB : you could use mignon in the 1st example, but the sentence would totally change about what is described (we would about what is drawn, and not the draw in global - a cat drawn for example)