The register you hear but never read
Every word here is ordinary spoken French. None belongs in a letter, an exam essay or a conversation with someone you have just met — but all of them are frequent enough that not knowing them leaves a real hole.
| informal | neutral | |
|---|---|---|
| le mec | l'homme, le type | guy, bloke |
| le gars | l'homme | guy — the -rs is silent: /ga/ |
| le flic | le policier | cop |
| le gamin | l'enfant | kid |
| le boulot | le travail | job, work |
| I found a new job. | J'ai trouvé un nouveau boulot. |
le gars sounds nothing like it looks
le gars is pronounced /ɡa/ — both the r and the s are silent, and the plural les gars sounds identical. It is one of the least phonetic words in the language.
cool is invariable
Borrowed adjectives usually refuse to agree, and cool is the clearest case: un blouson cool, une idée cool, des gens cool — never coole, never cools.
| Your new jacket is cool. | Ton nouveau blouson est cool. |
chéri and idiot do agree
These two are ordinary French adjectives and behave normally:
| masculine | feminine |
|---|---|
| chéri | chérie |
| idiot | idiote |
chéri is used as a form of address — chéri, chérie — the way English uses darling. idiot is a genuine insult applied to a person, so it is milder as a description of a thing (une idée idiote) than of someone.
