Let’s have fun with a little French slang, today with 8 slang words starting with the letter C. Not the most distinguished of French of course but definitely kid friendly, not to mention amusing!
You might be thinking “I don’t want to use slang when I speak French!” and that’s fine, although I must say you would truly impress us and, whether you want these words to come out of your mouth or not, you’ll have to understand them when they come into your ears. So, you might as well watch this video I promise it’s good 🙂
1- UN CANON
Canon with one n looks a lot like cannon with 2 n, the big piece of artillery. It is that too in French. But that’s not the meaning I want to teach you today.
If someone, male or female, is canon, Raphaël est canon or Julie est canon, it simply means that they are drop dead gorgeous hot hot hot!
My new colleague is really hot!
Mon nouveau collègue est vraiment canon!
Little bonus for you, the opposite of un canon is un boudin. You don’t really want people to call you that. However, canon is nice. If you hear someone calling you a canon, smile, at least inside.
2- UNE CLOPE
Une clope is another way of saying une cigarette. It’s familiar but not horribly vulgar. Something you’d say with your friends and it’s be perfectly fine. From the noun une clope we also made the verb cloper, to smoke a cigarette, fumer une clope or cloper.
You wouldn’t have a cigarette, would you please?
T’as pas une clope s’il te plaît?
3- CLAQUÉ(E)
Here used as an adjective, claqué for a man or claquée for a woman. It means dead tired. Originally the word claque means a slap in the face. So if you’re claqué it means you’re as tired as if someone had slapped you real hard. Again familiar but not vulgar.
Haaa what a long work day, I’m totally exhausted!
Haaa quelle longue journée de travail, je suis complètement claquée!
4- LES CHIOTTES
Now this one is quite vulgar. But everybody uses it, from time to time. A synonym for les chiottes is… les toilettes! And now you know what that means! If you want to know the details and why this one does indeed sound vulgar, the verb chier in French means to shit. I told you. I just looked it up to make sure and it is a crapper. It’s such a silly word I can’t say it!
My parents’ bathroom is full of magazines.
Les chiottes de mes parents sont pleins de magazines.
5- CRADE
Crade means dirty. Your shoes can be crade, your hair can be crade, your shirt can be crade. You get the picture. A dirty book or a dirty magazine would not be crade, crade is only for stains, a dirty book would be cochon and yes I know cochon actually means pig.
Remove your dirty boots before entering my place.
Enlève tes bottes crades avant de rentrer chez moi.
Crade is not vulgar, just familiar.
6- CHLINGUER
I love this verb and I use it a lot. Again it’s just a goofy funny word, not vulgar. Chlinguer means, ewww ça chlingue or you could say ewww ça pue! It stinks.
She put too much perfume on it stinks!
Elle a mis trop de parfum ça chlingue!
7- UNE CROÛTE
I love this word, just the sound of it cracks me up, it sounds repulsive, une croûte, croûte, une croûte. Right? This can mean so many different things. First the meanings that are not slang.
You fall, you bleed, you have a scab. A scab is une croûte.
You go to the bakery, you buy a baguette, it is covered with the crust. The crust is une croûte. Same thing for Earth crust, la croûte terrestre.
Now for slang purposes, there are 2: un casse-croûte, literally, a break crust, is a snack. Must come from the breaking of the bread, you break the crust.
And the 2nd one, which is my favorite, une croûte is a horrible unskillful bad painting that you hate.
Don’t tell me he bought this croûte!
Ne me dis pas qu’il a acheté cette croûte!
Now tell me, did you already know some of these French slang words? canon, clope, claqué, chiottes, crade, chlinguer, croûte? Do you know more starting with C? Share your comments with us!
Merci Virginie! Un autre mot est “casse-pied”. (A person who is a pain in the neck.).
Gary
Ah Ma Chère Virginie…
T’as fait exprès de laisser de côté le mot: (une) crotte
Trop utile si on remarque les « cadeaux » des chiens de nos voisins😉
Growing up in small town Indiana, I first learned high school textbook French. All of the examples we would hear in the language lab were very much Parisian French. During my senior year, I ended up spending a few weeks in France with my French pen-pal and his family at Christmas break. The family lived outside of Avignon.
From the time I arrived, I was very confused by the accent. It was so different from the French I had learned back in my Indiana high school! With my friend, and his friends, when we would be out together, I noticed that they used a lot of different words for things. Words that I had not learned in school but I chalked it up to part of the accent difference. After all, at the grocery store in Indiana, we would push a “cart” around the store. My cousins in Kentucky would push a “buggy.” Different words for the same thing. Right? It happens.
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all of the citizens of the village came together for their traditional Christmas Eve Bingo. It was the social event and so many people wanted to meet the young American who was visiting from a far-away land called Indiana.
I polished off my best French the entire evening. Or, so I thought. During the Bingo intermission, my friend excused himself to use the restroom. I ran into his mother milling about with a couple of the neighbor ladies and she asked me, “Ou est Marc?” Very confidently I replied with a huge smile: “Il est alle aux chiottes!” I was so proud of my accent and for remembering a+les equals aux. It just rolled off my tongue perfectly.
The look on his mother’s face, however, was priceless. And in front of the neighbors during a social event! How gauche!
All I knew was when I would be out and about with Marc and his friends, that was the word they used. Nobody told me it wasn’t a “parent-friendly” word. I had no idea it was not a polite word to use in front of the neighbor ladies. I just thought that les toilettes in Provence were les chiottes.
Lesson learned. Very quickly. On that trip I also learned a lesson of what happens when you don’t dilute Pastis with water. But that’s a story for another time!
Love your videos, Virginie! These days, my French is very, very bad but you’re helping to remember a lot of things I once knew.
le charabia – gibberish