Posts Tagged ‘Jonathan Roberge’







y’est rendu où?
where did it/he go?
what ever happened to it/him?

like, as in

un vieux grincheux
an old grump
a grumpy old man

to kick

les chnolles
balls, nuts


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In Ne touche pas mon bébé (a blog post on Urbania), Jonathan Roberge writes about his strong dislike of strangers’ touching his baby in public without his permission.

Jonathan describes a stranger — an elderly woman — who not only kissed his baby on the mouth, but did so without his permission. He says:

Pis là, elle a fait le move qui m’a rendu vraiment inconfortable. Elle lui a donné un bisou… sur la bouche.

An’ then, she did something (made the move) that made me really uncomfortable. She gave him a kiss… on the mouth.

We’ve seen many times that pis (a reduction of puis) is used in the sense of “and” in Québécois French.

What Jonathan has done here though is use it alongside to form a usage that you’ll hear very often in French conversations: pis là.

Pis là is used when recounting events. It means “and then.” First she did this, pis là she did that, pis là she said this, pis là she said that…

Pis là is an informal use. You can try using it to add a natural sound to your spoken French. Francophones use it all the time when speaking colloquially.

[Quote written by Jonathan Roberge in « Ne touche pas mon bébé » on Urbania, 10 October 2014.]

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He says:






1. embarquer
2. chialer
3. pogner

1. embarquer





4×4 is said as quatre par quatre.



2. chialer





3. pogner





_ _ _


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I went digging around the online version of Urbania for some expressions that you might like to learn. I’ve picked 7 and included some notes below.

1. On n’a pas besoin de gars pour se faire du fun!

= We don’t need guys to have ourselves some fun!

The author of this quote joked that girls who are secretly sad about being single say this to each other during girls’ night out on Valentine’s Day.

Gars is pronounced gâ. The final rs is not pronounced in gars. If you pronounce the rs, you’ll end up saying garce, which means “bitch” in French.

Other examples using le fun: j’ai eu du fun (I had fun), c’est le fun (it’s fun), une journée le fun (a fun day).

2. Avec le recul, j’ai honte en taaaaaa…

= Looking back, I’m embarrassed as hellllll…

The author of this sentence was talking about the embarrassment he felt when thinking back to something silly he had posted on Facebook.

The expression en ta is a shortened version of en tabarnak.

Another example: ça va mal en ta (things are damn awful).

3. à chaque fois qu’on voit une pitoune dans une pub de char

= every time there’s some hot chick in a car ad

Even though une pitoune is a very attractive girl, this word won’t be taken as a compliment by females. It’s similar to referring to a female as “a (hot) chick.”

The word pub is short for publicité. It can refer to ads on television or in print.

Words you’ll come across for “car” in Québec include: une auto, un char, une voiture.

Rather than just chaque fois (every time), you’ll hear people say à chaque fois very frequently.

4. Tu te flattes la bedaine.

= You pat your belly.

If you’ve got a belly, tu as de la bedaine. If it’s a really big one, tu as une grosse bedaine!

If someone’s got no shirt on, you can use the expression être en bedaine to describe what he’s wearing (nothing but his belly!).

Flatter means to pat, stroke.

5. Té crissment épuisée.

= Yer goddamn exhausted.

In entry #727 about two vulgar words for penis and vagina in Québécois French, you read an example of the verb s’en crisser (to not give a fuck, to not give a shit, etc.), which was je m’en crisse. In today’s example, we discover the related word crissment (or crissement).

is an informal reduction of tu es. This informal pronunciation is probably more often spelled t’es, but here we discover té, which means the same thing.

Épuisée is the feminine form of this adjective.

6. quelqu’un qui fourre le système

= someone who screws the system, who fucks the system

The author of this expression was putting forth his opinion about the difference between people who receive welfare out of a genuine need and those who milk the system for all it’s worth:

[…] il y a une GROSSE différence entre quelqu’un qui a besoin d’aide et quelqu’un qui fourre le système.

There’s a HUGE difference between someone in need and someone who fucks the system.

_ _ _


1-2. Jordan Dupuis, « Le monde selon J : La Saint-Valentin sur Facebook », Urbania, 17 février 2014.

3. Pascal Henrard, « Y a-t-il trop de féministes dans Urbania? », Urbania, 12 février 2014.

4-5. Véronique Grenier, « Amour », Urbania, 12 février 2014.

6. Jonathan Roberge, « Enlève ta banane de sur ma face », Urbania, 7 février 2014.

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