17
votes
Accepted
"Je vais te me les disperser" ?
As far as most French grammar books are concerned, this form of double ethical dative doesn't exist.
However, the reality is that it is definitely understood by native French and still used in ...
- 130k
17
votes
What's the word equivalent to, "Announcement! Announcement!" or "Attention! Attention!"
That's certainly:
Chères clientes, chers clients ! (Dear customers)
The expression is not specific to Switzerland.
- 130k
16
votes
Accepted
Words ending on i/u, spoken with (IPA) [ɪç] – is there a system?
Look up "phrase-final vowel devoicing" for scientific articles on the subject.
It's a relatively recent phenomenon in European French, whereby the vocal folds stop vibrating halfway through a vowel ...
- 9,101
16
votes
Accepted
Seeking colloquialism for “just because”
I suggest :
Oh, comme ça.
Oh, juste comme ça.
A possibly cheekier, less idiomatic translation would be :
Oh, parce que.
Bah, parce que.
- 1,627
14
votes
Omission of “ne” in “ne … personne”
Indeed, "ne" can always be omitted in spoken French ("ne ... que", "ne ... jamais", ...).
If you are trying to speak or write in a formal way however, I would recommend never to omit it in an ...
- 4,445
13
votes
She is doing it!
I think those are the closest translations:
« Elle/Il va le faire ! » - She/He's going to do it!
« Elle/Il va y arriver ! » - She/He's going to do it!
« Elle/Il peut le faire ! » - She/He can do it!
...
- 384
13
votes
Does French have the English "short i" vowel?
No, standard French does not have the vowel /ɪ/ (near-close front unrounded vowel), which is the English “short i”. The vowel which is normally written with the letter I in French is a close front ...
12
votes
Saying phone numbers
Essentially, by intonation and pauses. For “80, 16”, one would say:
Quatre-vingt. [pause] Seize.
with a rising intonation at the end of “80”, whereas for “96”, one would say:
Quatre-vingt-seize....
- 7,545
12
votes
Francophones seem to end sentences of emotion with "quoi"?
That kind of "quoi" is what is called a discourse marker, a particule intended to convey a speaker's attitude to the conversation, or to signal something to the interlocutor. A few other common ...
- 9,101
11
votes
Accepted
What do French tennis announcers say when the game is tied at 15 or 30 ?
I first believed it was trente à, and short for trente à trente. But it's actually written trente-A in official tennis procedures :
Le score
On annonce toujours les points du serveur en premier, ...
- 30.3k
11
votes
Does French have the English "short i" vowel?
The French generally spoken in France does not have [ɪ] either phonemically or phonetically, and to my knowledge no variety of French would use it for the first vowel in « s'il vous plait » (though ...
- 16.8k
11
votes
Que disent les français pour se corriger en parlant ?
Dans la conversation courante :
J'ai acheté du lait — euh, du pain.
J'ai acheté du lait — enfin, du pain.
Je veux dire s'emploie aussi volontiers : 'j'ai acheté du lait — euh, je veux dire, du ...
- 1,627
10
votes
Accepted
Leading zeroes in phone numbers
You should always pronounce leading zeros, and indeed say “zéro zéro” whenever a “block” of two digits is made of 0s.
01 47 20 00 01
is pronounced
zéro un, quarante-sept, vingt, zéro zéro, zéro ...
- 7,545
10
votes
How do you say 1.000.001 in French?
In most use cases, there would be no ambiguity. The context will generally rule out the strictly correct option if you talk about prices or actual quantities :
Cette maison coûte un million deux.
...
- 130k
10
votes
Accepted
Most idiomatic way to say "Could you repeat that?"
Plait-il ? / Plaît-il ? formal, outdated (or nowadays often humorous, ironical or sarcastic)
Pourriez-vous répéter [, s'il vous plait (or plaît)] ? is very formal
Pouvez-vous répéter [, s'il vous ...
- 130k
10
votes
Ways to tell a person to be quiet
Ferme-la ! (or La ferme !) is very rude although you might be even more rude with Tu vas la fermer ta gueule ! or just Ta gueule !.
Tais-toi ! or Taisez-vous ! is only acceptable if you are talking to ...
- 130k
10
votes
Tartuffe de Molière : "Raijon" et "fiche"
L'explication est clairement indiquée après le texte en question :
qui avait un énorme morceau de patisserie dans la bouche.
Mme Pernelle, dans cette très libre interprétation de l’œuvre originale ...
- 130k
10
votes
Les différents langages du français
Comme l'écrivait déjà Louis Meigret en 1530 :
Nous écrivons un langage qui n'est point en usage, et usons d'une langue qui n'a point
d'écriture en France. Cité par Bernard Cerquiglini, L'accent ...
- 130k
9
votes
Accepted
Quand commence-t-on des phrases avec "moi, je" ?
"Moi je" n'est pas forcément à éviter à l'oral. Il peut être indispensable et tout à fait correct. Pensez au dialogue suivant :
Albert dit : "J'adore le chocolat".
Gérard lui ...
- 932
9
votes
Comment s’excuser de prononcer quelque chose mal ?
Je dirais
Excusez ma prononciation
qui a l'avantage d'être compréhensible, assez soutenu et simple à prononcer, ce qui est plutôt souhaitable pour ce genre de phrases.
- 20k
9
votes
Accepted
Construct with "personne" and "pas"
The correct translation is indeed
Personne n'est arrivé
And as you correctly deducted, "personne" already has a negative meaning so you shouldn't combine it with "pas" (but keeping the ne or in ...
- 5,147
9
votes
Accepted
Feu orange ou feu jaune ?
Vivant dans le Nord-Est de la France je n'ai jamais entendu un particulier utiliser "feu jaune". Par contre "feu orange" est couramment employé. On parle même d'"orange mûr" quand on passe au moment ...
9
votes
"Je vais te me les disperser" ?
It's also know as "dative of interest". It's mostly an emphatical marker common in French, but also used as a way to "call in" someone: Regarde-moi ça!, "Look at it!" has an additional "call-out" ...
- 17.3k
9
votes
Spelling of “je” and “ge” as “ze”
That comes from a speech habit of the very young in France; it's called "zézayer" or colloquially "zozoter"; it consists in replacing the sounds "je" by the sound "...
- 37.3k
9
votes
Is it natural to use “quoi” at the end of a sentence in texting?
Yes, phatic quoi looks absolutely OK in a text. As a general rule of thumb, whatever sounds right in speech will look fine in a text message or online chat.
Examples that would make completely legit ...
- 1,627
9
votes
Fast spoken French: Is "pour" removed in "Selon moi, pour se changer..."?
I'm pretty sure this is just some issue with audio editing of this recording. This is obviously an edited track, and it seems the person assembling these bits of audio together just started this bit (...
- 5,147
8
votes
De « je suis » à « ch'u » ?
Il y a deux évolutions de prononciation séparées, là : d'un coté la fusion des consonnes initiales de je et suis ; de l'autre la fusion de la semi-voyelle et de la voyelle de suis.
Le premier ...
- 9,101
8
votes
Quand commence-t-on des phrases avec "moi, je" ?
Le livre de grammaire évite la tautologie, surtout à l'écrit ; à moins que ce ne soit pour souligner un caractère, une attitude ou rapporter un dialogue le moi je ... est à proscrire.
Moi je ... à l'...
- 24.2k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible