"French Slang"

Huh? We were all French, but using different words made by us for us. Each town had its own words.

Here is an example:

The French word for: 'car' is 'la voiture'. Note that it is a feminine noun.

In slang, we were never saying 'la voiture' but 'la caisse'. 'La caisse' means 'the box'. We used to say this because when you enter in any car, it's like you are entering in a box, isn't it?

One time, I met some guys from the est of Paris. One of them said I will take my 'fer' (the translation for 'fer' is 'iron' in english). I didn't understand what he meant by 'fer', since it means iron, and iron had no relation with the context... I understood that it was their own word, and to know the meaning, the only thing I could do was asking them.

Even if you grab the best French to French dictionary, you will never be able to find the right definition since it was proper to them!

So when I asked, the guy told me that the 'fer' was what we called 'la caisse'. They called that iron because a car is made of iron, steal, etc...

Later, I found others call a car: 'le feu' (feu = fire in English). They called a car 'fire' because of the combustion and gaz.

French Slang is something that only a French native speaker can teach you.

Note that slang will change a lot from the north to the south of France, as from the est to the ouest.

Beside slang, you will also find backslang ('verlan' which is derived from the real French word: 'a l'envers' = upside down)

To speak Backslang, you just need to say the syllables of the words back to front.

Here are some examples,

"To eat" which is “Manger” in French, is changed to " géman " in backslang, "To beat" which is "frapper" in French is changed to "pefra".

A 'dog' which is "chien" in French is changed to "iench", etc...

Now to go further and see the difference between French, slang and backslang, let's take an example...

In French, a woman is: "une femme". There are several words in slang for women: 'une gonzesse' (old slang, not used anymore), 'une nana' (not used where I live!) or 'une canette' just to name a few.

Note: you may not hear the word canette because it was a word used where I lived, and it had itself a relation with creole.

Now that we saw the slang for the word woman ("femme"), what is the backslang?

Answer: "meuf" or "feumeu", the two are accepted.

Another example: The slang for a car ("une voiture" in French) we saw some example before ('caisse', 'fer', 'feu'). An oldest form of slang is 'bagnole' (was used in the 70's).

What would be the backslang for voiture?

Answer: "Turevoi"

No need to say that in order to say the "right" backslang word, you need to master these words and the French language in general, otherwise you will pass for a fool!

It can be a good test for people who learn French?

Now if you hear a word that really doesn't make sense, ask yourself: is it French, slang or Backslang?