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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Fifteen French ‘text speak’ abbreviations that will help you sound local

Nobody wants to be the embarrassing old person who gets their LOLs mixed up, and it's even harder if you're messaging someone in a second language.

Published: 22 May 2019 18:09 CEST
Updated: 6 July 2020 11:07 CEST

Fifteen French 'text speak' abbreviations that will help you sound local

Photo: Depositphotos

As with English, French has evolved its own selection of abbreviated 'text speak' – perfect for when you're texting or messaging someone, and also useful to use on Twitter.

And if you're going to be sending messages to French friends, colleagues and neighbours you will start to see quite a few of these.

But you need to be careful not to get your DQP mixed up with your JTM, or your conversation could be taking a turn that you definitely won't expect.

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As in English, text speak in France is generally casual and better kept between friends, so we don't suggest that you try these out on your boss or your mother-in-law, unless they use them first.

Here is a list of some of the most common text abbreviations in France.

MDR (mort de rire) – LOL (laugh out loud. Definitely not lots of love, as many a red-faced oldie – including former British Prime Minister David Cameron – has found).

STP/SVP (s’il te plaît/s’il vous plaît) – please

DQP (dès que possible) – ASAP

bcp (beaucoup) – a lot

dac (d’accord) – OK

PEH (pour être honnête) – TBH (to be honest)

A+ (à plus) i see ya later

biz (bisous) – kisses

dsl (désolé) – sorry

jtm (je t’aime) – I love you

A12C4 (à un de ces quatre) – see you when I see you

C cho (c’est chaud) – that’s tough/dangerous/difficult

CPG (c’est pas grave) – don’t worry about it

p2k (pas de quoi) – no thanks necessary

qqn (quelqu’un) – somebody

Have we missed out a phrase that you see all the time? Add your suggestions by emailing [email protected]

For more words of the day, visit our language section.

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An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.

An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences.

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender.

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use.

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name.

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor.

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris).

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there.

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas

Islands

Islands follow more complicated rules.

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place:

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives.

No preposition needed

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include:

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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