Contrary to what you may have heard, it’s entirely possible to survive in Montréal without speaking a lick of French. “Why do speak it then?” you ask. Four words: les filles du roi. French girls have that half-native, half-whore ancestry that’s so irresistible, the mere possibility of one even looking at your dink is worth sounding like Bobby from How’s Your News.
Most French people from France mock the Quebecois accent like it’s just some colonial hick language, but it’s actually a throwback from the 17th-century French spoken in the King’s court mixed with some Normandy French and a few Anglicisms thrown in for good measure. The accent itself is tough to master (it’s kind of a back-of-the-throat thing with a lot of twangy action in the sinus cavity) but once you’ve got it, it’s way more fun to speak than stuck-up continental French.
Here are a few basic words and phrases you need to know and a few others just in case you meet a French Quebecer and he’s all, “Eh! Mon maudit de chrisse de tabarnak de tête carré! Je m’en câlisse de toi et ton ôstie’d chien chaud.” And you’re all, “What the fuck did he just say to me?”
Basic Swearing
The single most important influence on Quebec swearing is the Catholic Church. Prior to WWII, the Church ruled Francophone Quebec in partnership with Anglo business leaders and a small, extremely corrupt coterie of Quebecois politicos and operators, (i.e. Maurice Duplessis AKA “Le Roi Negre,” literally, the Negro King).
Chrisse—Christ
Ôstie—Host (as in the little white Communion wafer)
Câlisse—Chalice (the cup of the Eucharist for the wine/Jesus’ blood)
Ciboire—Another cup
Sacrament—Sacrament
Maudit—Damn
Tabarnak—Tabernacle (i.e. a receptacle for the consecrated elements of the Eucharist; especially: an ornamental locked box used for reserving the Communion wafers [see ôstie]
Merde—Shit
Va chier—Go shit
Cave—Cave (idiot)
Tête carré, bloke, maudit anglais—Squarehead (English person)
Capoter—To overturn (to freak out)
Faque—Therefore (contraction of ça fait que)
Écoeurant—Heart-wrenching, sickening (the Quebecois use it to say “amazing.” Go figure.)
Quebecois Phrases
It seems the farther from downtown Montréal you get, the crazier and more random the language is. By the time you get to the Saguenay-Lake St-Jean region, it’s basically a combination of Dadaist poetry and semaphore. Even if you were given a word-for-word translation of an average Quebecois conversation in the East End, odds are you’d only understand about 12 percent of it. Hell, most of the people using these phrases have no idea where they came from. It’s not like potatoes and boots are a big part of the culture here, it’s more like it’s ingrained in their collective unconscious, like their love for prog rock and Pepsi. So if you really want to impress a Francophone, drop one of these key phrases in conversation and watch their eyes totally bug out.
Tu me gosses—You are testicleing me (You’re bothering me)
Chaud comme une botte—Hot like a boot (Fucking drunk)
Arranger le portrait—Rearranging a portrait (Got beat up)
Se faire passer un sapin—Having a spruce tree go through your asshole (Getting fucked over by a bad deal)
Dans les patates—In the potatoes (To be wrong )
Lâche pas la patate—Don’t drop the potato (Don’t give up)
Avoir l’air de la chienne à Jacques—Looking like Jack’s dog (Dressed like an idiot)
