Let's rebuild the Tower of Babel.

For people learning French and wanting to speak it like a native, I’ll give you some tips, the things native people say (so you can sound less formal when you speak it).

“Je suis” is often shortened to “j’suis” and if we say it fast, it becomes “chuis”

“Tu es” and basically every verb with “tu” that starts with a vowel, we contract it and make it “t’es”, “t’arrives”, etc.

“il y a”, “il y avait” are most of the time shortened to (oral speech and when writing to a friend) “ya”, “y avait”

To make a question, it’s rare that we use the “est-ce que” form, we just take the affirmative sentence and put a question mark at the end : tu veux manger? (instead of : veux-tu manger?, est-ce que tu veux manger?)

Some abbreviations we often use :

bcp (beaucoup), mtn (maintenant), pk (pourquoi), tlm (tout le monde), mm (même), ptn (putain)

I know this post is probably useless but if you have any questions about french, ill be happy to answer them!

THIS WAS HELPFUL!

Also some things I’ve learned:

• Drop the ne from ne … pas. So instead of saying « Je n’y mange pas », say « J’y mange pas.»
• In Paris at least, they tend to prefer on over nous. On va au ciné, au musée, etc. is more common than Nous allons…
• Learn what Verlan is and how to use it.
• Ne … que seems to be used more frequently than seulement. For example, Je ne veux que l’écouter.
• There are also just a lot of slang words your textbook won’t teach you, and they aren’t even necessarily rude. Like la flotte instead of l’eau.

I would definitely also recommend these YouTube channels.

• The on over nous is simply everywhere in France, if not in francophone areas!
• The ne…que construction: apply the en dropping rule too ;) but we also use juste A LOT, probably an anglicism? (e.g. je veux juste l’écouter)
• j’suis and chuis can be applied to j’sais and chais too
• informal greetings for hello: salut, coucou
• informal greetings for bye: salut, ciao (frenchified spelling: tchao), tchô, bye, à plus, à toute (short for à tout de suite or à tout à l’heure, when you’re gonna see the other person in a few minutes or later in the day)
• avoir des sous : to have money - we often say des sous instead of de l’argent

(via polyglotical)