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Canadian French for Better Travel Contents CANADIAN FRENCH CANADIAN FOR BETTER TRAVEL Travel Travel Phrasebook FRENCH FOR BETTER TRAVEL Hundreds of colourful expressions, with their meanings in standard French and English / History and basics of French in Québec and Canada / Phonetic transcriptions to help you speak and understand Canadian French / Full index in Canadian French and English / Sidebars CH on Québécois culture and linguistic particularities / A great little travel companion to help you discover and appreciate Canadian French! CANADIAN FREN www.ulyssesguides.com ISBN 978-2-89665-018-7 (digital version) PC_Canadian-French-FBT(9657).indd 1 2011-03-30 15:40:39 KEY WORDS AND PHRASES 1 Introduction Bonjour Bonjour/Au revoir Hello/Goodbye 2 Vive la Différence! Bonswêr Bonsoir Good evening 3 Basic Québécois Words and Expressions Bienvenue Je vous en prie/De rien You’re welcome 4 Daily Life Pardon? Vous dites? Excuse me? (to ask someone 5 Outdoors to repeat themselves) 6 Creature Comforts S’cusez/S’cusez-mwé Excusez-moi Excuse me (to pass or 7 Human Relations interrupt someone) 8 Index t’suite/tsu suite tout de suite right now/right away asteure maintenant/ now/ de nos jours these days à matin ce matin this morning à swèr ce soir tonight/this evening chu/ch’ je suis I am mwé moi me twé toi you nous autres/nouzô’te nous us/we vous autres/vouzô’te vous you (plural) eux autres/euzô’te ils, elles them Ch’sé pâs./Ch’é pâs. Je ne sais pas. I don’t know. t’sé/t’sé, lâ tu sais you know LE QUÉBÉCOIS, CÉ L’fONNE à’ mORT! (see p. 135) www.ulyssesguides.com PC_Canadian-French-FBT(9657).indd 2 2011-03-30 15:38:35 CANADIAN FRENCH FOR BETTER TRAVEL Contents A Bit of History 6 1 INTRODUCTION Québécois French 6 Acadian French 8 The Rest of Canada 9 Ontario 9 The Prairies and Western Canada 10 The North 11 2 VIVE LA Chameleon Vowels 13 A Menagerie of Consonants 15 DIFFÉRENCE! The Buzzing T and D 15 The Rolling R 15 The Fleeing L 15 That Noisy Silent T 16 Sounds Familiar… 16 When Grammar and Syntax Become One 18 Double you 18 No means no 19 Any questions? 19 Other unusual constructions to watch out for 19 Boy or girl? 19 How To Use This Guide 20 Everyday Expressions 23 3 BASIC Où - Où ç’que (Where) 26 QUÉBÉCOIS WORDS Quoi - Qu’essé/Qu’ess (What) 28 Comment/Combien - Comment-ç’que AND EXPRESSIONS (How/How much) 29 Quand - Quand cé/Quant’ess (When) 30 Est-ce/N’est-ce pas - Ç’tsu (Is it/Isn’t it) 31 Je, tu, il/elle… (I, You, He/She…) 33 Numbers 34 Weights and Measures 35 Other Curious Words and Expressions 36 Cursing 42 Those Deceptive Faux Amis 46 Unknown Words 57 A Few Regional Expressions from Outside Québec 58 Acadia 58 The Prairies 60 Contents Transportation 63 4 DAILY LIFE The Car 64 Finding Your Way Around 76 Health 77 Money 78 Mail and Telecommunications 82 Electricity 84 The Weather 85 5 OUTDOORS Outdoor Activities 89 Sports 91 Hockey 92 Fauna 93 Lodging and the Home 95 6 CREATURE The Bedroom 101 COMFORTS The Bathroom 102 The Kitchen 104 Cleaning Up 106 Eating In and Out 109 Food and Drink 112 Québécois Cuisine 116 Shopping 119 Stationery 120 Hardware 121 Grooming 122 Miscellaneous Items 122 Clothing and Accessories 125 7 HUMAN Generalities 129 Going Out 134 RELATIONS Getting Intimate 138 Working 142 The Family 146 Feelings 147 Behaviours and Attitudes 150 8 INDEX French Canadian Words 159 English words 173 Author Editor Graphic Design Pierre Corbeil Pierre Ledoux Bryan-K. Lamonde, Atelier Louis-Charles Lasnier Translation Copy Editing and Adaptation Pierre Daveluy Layout Cindy Garayt Matthew McLauchlin Pascal Biet Matthew McLauchlin Photo Credits © iStockphoto.com / Roger Asbury (cover page), © Dreamstime.com/Electro76 (p. 12), © Dreamstime.com/Fer737ng (p. 22), © Pascal Biet (p. 62 and 94), © Dreamstime.com/Reinhardt (p. 88), © iStockphoto.com/technotr (p. 128), © Shutterstock.com/Kenneth V. Pilon (p. 158). This work was produced under the direction of Olivier Gougeon and Claude Morneau. Acknowledgements We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities. We would also like to thank the Government of Québec – Tax credit for book publishing – Administered by SODEC. Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec and Library and Archives Canada cataloguing in publication Main entry under title: Canadian French for better travel 3rd ed. (Travel phrasebook) Translation of: Le québécois pour mieux voyager. Includes index. For English-speaking travellers. Text in French and English. ISBN 978-2-89464-965-7 1. French language - Provincialisme - Québec (Province). 2. French language - Conversation and phrase books - English. PC3645.Q8Q4213 2011 447’.9714 C2010-942314-3 No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including photocopying, without the written permission of the publisher. © April 2011, Ulysses Travel Guides All rights reserved Printed in Canada ISBN 978-2-89464-965-7 (Printed Version) ISBN 978-2-89665-018-7 (Digital Version) 1 INTRODUCTION Part of what makes travelling fun is getting to hear, speak and learn different languages. Granted, Canada’s two official languages, French and English, are not the most exotic of tongues, but the country’s rich tapestry of traditions and landscapes has made them unique in their own way. It goes without saying that French, like all languages, has its own share of nuances and subtleties, not to mention regional variations. These will become more obvious to you as you listen to locals, no matter what province you find yourself in: Québec, the largest French-speaking territory on the globe; Manitoba, home of a strong Franco-Manitoban population; the Maritimes, land of the proud Acadian people, descendants of the first French-speaking settlers in North America; or any other province in the country. This guide to Canadian French is primarily aimed at English-speakers with some knowledge of French. Although we do touch on the history and typical expressions of Canada’s other francophone regions, this guide mainly focuses on the French spoken in the province of Québec. Indeed, this province is the cradle of the French language in Canada and is home to some six million French speakers. Some schools of thought have attempted to relegate Québécois French to the status of unnatural by-product, or “poor cousin,” of the mother tongue, that is, the French that is spoken in France. But unnatural it is not: Québécois French is its own entity, with its own vocabulary and phonetics. Nor is it some sort of unsophisticated, back-woods patois or uneducated slang; in Québec, distinctly Québécois features can be found at all levels of language, from friendly chats to boardrooms and debates in the National Assembly. That said, you might be surprised to Canadian French for Better Travel 5 1 Introduction see that everyday Québécois, whether it is in the workplace, the tourism industry or the media, does not differ that much from “standard” French. To hear the major differences, better to turn to Québécois films, songs and literature, as these forms of artistic expression in recent decades sought to assert the province’s unique linguistic identity. You also may or may not be familiar with the term joual (a derivative of cheval, meaning “horse”), which designates an inarticulate type, or slang, of Québécois French; this word is still occasionally used but no longer refers to the language in its entirety. A BIT OF HistorY Québécois French French colonization of Québec dates back to the early 17th century. Contrary to popular belief, the first settlers of New France were not idle, illiterate peasants but rather (for the most part) educated artisans and labourers from urban regions such as Poitou and Normandy. This is actually quite remarkable since the illiteracy rate in France in those days was approximately 80%. In addition, the settlers were accustomed to middle-class society and were familiar with “central” French — the language of administration — even though they spoke their own regional dialects, of which there were thousands scattered throughout the French countryside. In the early days of the settlement, “a wide array of regional languages and French dialects coexisted. Those that differed from French to the point of hindering communication were doomed to extinction, while those that resembled it enough to make communication possible were maintained by their speakers” (R. Mougeon and É. Beniak, Les origines du français québécois, Presses de l’Université Laval, 1994; our translation). Norman dialects had the most marked impact on Québécois French; they are the source of several Canadian terms and expressions. Furthermore, the very nature of the colony, whose development required constant social and commercial interactions between settlers 6 Canadian French for Better Travel Introduction 1 originating from different regions of France, soon resulted in an unusual cohesion and convergence of language. Consequently, it wasn’t long before Québec had a strongly unified language that was much less variable than it was in the motherland. This standardization, which occurred in the late 17th century, apparently followed the lines of conventional French, which was spoken by the colony’s elite but also, and perhaps especially, by most women who had settled in the New World. These women educated their children in French and therefore played a key role in establishing the language. Still, a number of terms and pronunciations fiercely resisted the systematic move toward to normalized French. Gradually, additional regionalisms appeared throughout the entire territory and survive to this day. Obviously, as soon as a diverse French population began to develop miles away from the old country, confronting realities and requirements that were very different from its past experience, its language headed in a new direction.
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