B2 lesson 16 gave you the register ladder and told you the bottom rung existed. This lesson teaches its grammar — because spoken French is not written French pronounced badly. It is a consistent system with its own question forms, its own word order, its own negation and its own set of structural particles. Transcribe a real conversation and it looks like a list of errors. It is not.
Learning this does two things. It makes fast speech comprehensible. And it lets you produce French that sounds like a person rather than a textbook — while still being able to write the other version, which is what register control means.
| French | Pronunciation | Written form |
|---|---|---|
| chuis fatigué | shwee fah-tee-GAY | je suis fatigué |
| t’as raison | tah ray-ZOHN | tu as raison |
| t’es où ? | tay OO | tu es où ? |
| y’a personne | yah pair-SON | il n’y a personne |
| j’sais pas | shay PAH | je ne sais pas |
| faut qu’on parte | foh kohn PART | il faut que nous partions |
| i’ vient pas | ee vyan PAH | il ne vient pas |
| quest-ce tu fais | kes tü FAY | qu’est-ce que tu fais |
| çui-là | swee-LAH | celui-là |
| m’en fous | mahn FOO | je m’en fiche (stronger) |
Two patterns cover most of it: subject pronouns lose their vowel or their consonant (je → j’/ch, tu → t’, il → i’), and il y a collapses to y’a. Add the dropped ne below and you can decode most casual speech.
You learned three question forms at A2: intonation, est-ce que, inversion. Real speech overwhelmingly uses a fourth — the question word stays where the answer would go.
| Spoken (in situ) | Written / formal |
|---|---|
| Tu vas où ? | Où allez-vous ? |
| Il arrive quand ? | Quand arrive-t-il ? |
| Tu fais quoi ? | Que faites-vous ? |
| C’est combien ? | Combien cela coûte-t-il ? |
| Tu pars avec qui ? | Avec qui partez-vous ? |
| Pourquoi tu dis ça ? | Pourquoi dites-vous cela ? |
Note quoi rather than que: que cannot stand at the end of a clause, so spoken French uses the stressed form. Tu fais quoi ? is normal; tu fais que ? is impossible. And pourquoi is the one question word that still prefers the front even in speech.
Lesson 2 introduced dislocation as an emphasis device. In speech it is not a device — it is the ordinary way to organise information. The topic goes outside the clause, and a pronoun holds its place inside.
Mon frère, il habite à Lyon.
Le film, je l’ai trouvé nul.
Ma sœur, son mari, il est prof. — double dislocation, perfectly normal.
Il est où, ton sac ? — dislocation to the right.
Moi, les maths, j’ai jamais compris. — two topics, one clause.
If you are waiting for a subject to be followed by its verb, a dislocated sentence throws you: you hear a noun, then a pause, then what sounds like a fresh sentence with a pronoun. Expect it and the sentence resolves instantly.
In ordinary conversation the ne of ne… pas simply is not there. Pas is the negator; ne is a written formality.
| Spoken | Written |
|---|---|
| Je sais pas. | Je ne sais pas. |
| C’est pas grave. | Ce n’est pas grave. |
| J’ai rien dit. | Je n’ai rien dit. |
| Y’a personne. | Il n’y a personne. |
| Faut pas exagérer. | Il ne faut pas exagérer. |
Where ne survives in speech: fixed expressions (n’importe quoi, ne serait-ce que), the ne explétif after craindre, and deliberate emphasis. Where it never disappears: anything written above the register of a text message.
Dropping ne in speech makes you sound normal. Dropping it in writing makes you look uneducated. This is one of the few places where the spoken and written norms genuinely diverge and both are compulsory.
These are not filler. Each one does a specific job, and misusing them is more noticeable than a grammar mistake.
| French | Pronunciation | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| du coup | dü KOO | marks consequence — so, hence |
| quoi | KWAH | clause-final: closes a point, appeals for agreement |
| ben / bah | BAN / BAH | hesitation, or a mildly obvious answer |
| hein ? | AN | seeks confirmation — right? |
| genre | ZHAHNR | approximation — like, sort of |
| en fait | ahn FET | corrects or specifies — actually |
| enfin bref | ahn-fan BREF | cuts a story short |
| bon | BOHN | closes a topic, moves on |
| voilà | vwah-LAH | confirms, concludes, fills |
| tu vois | tü VWAH | checks the listener is with you |
| disons | dee-ZOHN | hedges a figure or a word choice |
| quand même | kahn MEM | all the same — often indignant |
Voilà quoi, bon ben voilà and enfin bref are stacked particles that close a turn. Using one at the right moment does more for your apparent fluency than fifty new nouns.
Real speech is built and rebuilt as it goes. The repair devices are conventional:
Je veux dire… · Non, attends… · Enfin, je veux dire… · C’est-à-dire que… · Comment dire… · Bref.
And French turn-taking overlaps. Interrupting a friend mid-sentence is participation, not rudeness; waiting for a full stop can read as disengagement. In a professional setting, the formulas of lesson 18 (je me permets de vous interrompre) do the same job politely.
| Spoken | Written |
|---|---|
| Y’a pas de souci, j’vais l’faire. | Il n’y a aucun problème, je vais le faire. |
| Tu pars quand, du coup ? | Quand partez-vous, par conséquent ? |
| Mon frère, il l’a pas vu. | Mon frère ne l’a pas vu. |
| C’est chaud, quoi. | C’est une situation difficile. |
Being able to move a sentence between those two columns, in both directions, is exactly what the CEFR means by C1 register control. It is also the DALF oral examiner's favourite thing to observe.
Du coup has become the signature consequence marker of French under forty, to the irritation of everyone over sixty; genre plays the role English like plays. In situ questions are so dominant that inversion in casual speech can sound affected. Regional speech adds its own tags: hein everywhere, quoi heavily in the west, té and ô in the south.
Québécois spoken grammar has features France lacks entirely. The interrogative particle -tu turns any statement into a yes/no question: Ça se peut-tu ? · T'es-tu prêt ? — nothing to do with the pronoun tu. Fait que (often fa que) is the consequence marker where France says du coup. Là is appended constantly as a discourse marker (moi là, je pense que…), and tu is used far more readily with strangers than in France.
Rewrite the question word where the answer would go.
From: du coup · quoi · hein · en fait · genre.
Supply the resumptive pronoun.
1. Tu fais quoi ? uses quoi rather than que because:
2. Dropping ne is:
3. In Québec, T’es-tu prêt ? means: