I am in search of a course already on here that has more l’argot but at a simpler pace then say a netflix movie. Does that exist?
It was funny how many french verlan words I knew from reading books and watching movies long before I even heard of the concept of “verlan.” Someone had to explain to me what verlan was and how all those words I knew actually had a system to them.
All that is to say: I wouldn’t worry about this too much. As usual, my advice would be just to read and listen to contemporary books – in this case, “cops and robbers” type stories which will feature a fair amount these types of words in their dialog.
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Another possibility is for you to upload novels or stories that use a lot of argot. For example, the very influential and enjoyable “Zazie dans le métro” par Raymond Queneau.
[Edit]: Voilà une page web qui explique quelle sorte de langage (“néo-français”*) on utilise dans ce roman:
https://www.cairn.info/revue-roman2050-2013-2-page-157.htm
@AprilisFluent
I agree with @t_harangi. Contemporary crime novels are an excellent choice for learning some argot. Maybe he can also give you some recommendations on what to read.
Some other good resources are:
- The songs written by Renaud (he’s famous for using argot in his songs). You can import his lyrics into LingQ (see: Paroles de Mistral Gagnant - Renaud lyrics | Paroles-musique.com) and listen to his songs on Youtube or import them into LingQ as audio files (provided it’s possible to download them from Youtube).
- Current French rap songs
- A dictionary on contemporary argot like “Tout l’argot des banlieues.” (2013) by Abdelkarim Tengour. But, 2500 argot expressions on more than 700 pages are probably “overkill”
“Zazie dans le métro”? Definitely a great book, but its argot might be outdated because the book was published more than 60 years ago.
However, if your LingQ stats for French are correct, then you’re still at a beginner level. It doesn’t make much sense in this case to obsessively study verlan and argot if you still have trouble listening to the Easy French videos without assistance, for example (see: Easy French - Learn French from the Streets! - YouTube).
It should be enough to know a few expressions like “la meuf = la femme”, “la teuf = la fête”, “laisse béton = laisse tomber” or “le beur = l’arabe”, etc. See:
Merci à tous! Sounds like there isn’t anything already on LingQ. I’ll look at your recommendations and do some uploading!
I’ve checked a lot of French courses on LingQ (out of interest), but - unless I’m completely mistaken - there aren’t many French episodes with argot. The reason is probably that argot / verlan isn’t considered that useful, esp. at the beginner and intermediate levels. But knowing some verlan is definitely “fun”
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Thank you for the info. I didn’t start learning French with Lingq
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