While I grew up hearing accidental French expletives that would sneak their way out of my mother’s mouth, for those who learned French in the classroom, I’m guessing the teacher was not willing (or able) to teach students how to properly and thoroughly cuss in French. So, in that vein, here are some of my very favorite French curses. These are the things you hear spilling out of cab driver’s mouths, accidentally being shouted by my grandmother when she drops the milk, or accompanied by grimaced faces and occasional hand gestures in the streets of Paris.
Now, before you go around dropping the French equivalent of the F bomb on your next trip, keep in mind that language plays an immensely important role in French culture. In fact, being articulate and well spoken is considered to be an extremely valuable asset and characteristic, and while the French also like to curse a lot, the term most often associated with curse words is “unrefined.” However, in the right place, with the right people, you can impress your French friends (and make them giggle) by appropriately using these very useful and colorful curses.
Julie’s 10 Favorite French Swear Words
1. Merde!(MARE-deh)
This translates quite literally as “shit.” I grew up hearing this word mumbled (or sometimes shouted) when my mother accidentally would burn herself on the stove or have some sort of other expletive inducing outburst. You’ll definitely hear “merde” used in France in as wide of a context as “shit” in English.
2. Putain!/Pute!(Poo-TAHN)/(poote)
This word packs a serious punch, so use it with caution (and maybe not in mixed company). Putain literally translates as “whore,” but tends to be used more like the word “fuck” in English. Not only can it be used as an emotional reaction to something, like “Fuck!” in English, you can also direct it at someone in particular, “ca pute” (that whore). People joke that the word “fuck” can be used as every part of speech in English, and in French, putain functions much the same way.
3. Chiant/Ca me fait chier(CHI-ant)/(sa meh fey CHIay)
This word is most commonly used in the context of “ce me fait chier,” which translates as a more vulgar version of “that pisses me off.” This became one of my favorite expressions when I was living in Paris (which tells you something about my personality…) and my great Aunt who I lived with would cringe when I would accidentally let this slip out at home.
4. Salope! (SAL-up)
You’ll most likely be directing this one at someone in particular, rather than as an angry expletive shouted in response to something. It translates as “bitch,” and is used pretty much exactly the same way the word is used in English. Also, like in English, you can incorporate this word into a a phrase like “fils de salope” (son of a bitch).
*salop (pronounced sal-o) is the masculine version
5. Foutre/ Je m’en fou (FOO-truh)/(Juh MONH foo)
Again, although you may hear this dropped around a lot, use it with caution as “foutre” is the verb for “to fuck.” You’ll most often hear this in the phrase “je m’en fou,” which essentially means “I don’t give a fuck.” This also became one of my favorite phrases while I was living in Pairs and it was another one that would make my grande tante (great aunt) cringe when it slipped out at home.
6. Con/conasse/connard (cohn)/(COHN-asse)/(COHN-nard)
This is often used as “ass” in French , though it is also sometimes translated as a milder “idiot.” There is a famous movie in French titled “Le Diner des Cons,” which is about a group of Parisian businessmen who each bring a “con,” or an idiot, to dinner and then the favorite “con” is chosen at the end (i.e. the guy who makes the biggest fool of himself). The movie title has been translated a variety of different ways (like “The Diner of Idiots” and “The Dinner Game”) and exemplifies why direct translation of idiomatic phrases, slang and cuss words can be difficult. Also, while this is a milder curse than “putain,” it is also certainly not polite, so use with caution.
7. Nique ta mere! (neek tah mare)
Watch out for this curse, as it literally translates as “fuck your mother.” This phrase is not only extremely vulgar, but also very offensive and should be reserved for situations when only the most extreme curse is needed.
8. Ta Gueule! (THAI-gull)
This is just about the rudest way possible of telling someone to shut up. While it does not really have an exact equivalent or translation in English, it’s kind of like saying “shut the fuck up,” or “shut your trap.” You’ll definitely hear this in banter among friends, but it can also be used in a really insulting way.
9. Casse-toi! (KASS-twah)
This French curse became the center of a French controversy when President Sarkozy was caught saying this a French citizen who had refused to shake his hand at an agricultural fair in France. This insult is kind of like a very rude way of saying “bug off,” or maybe even “fuck off.” Combined with another expletive, (like “con”) it can actually pack quite a powerful punch.
10.. C’est des conneries! (Say-day-KOHN-ree)
Clearly this curse is related to #6 on this list, and can be translated best as “this is bullshit.” I particularly enjoy this phrase and found it very useful in my daily life. I also like to throw in extra words for emphasis like “C’est vraiment des conneries!” (That is REALLY bullshit).
*If you want to know some of our Paris resident’s essential French swear words
So, those are my favorite French swear words and cusses. You may have your own colorful expletives. What’s your favorite way to swear in French?
{ 73 comments }
I always have appreciated:
Branleur — as in, ‘Quel Branleur!’ Which essentially translates as ‘You wanker.’ Stringing this together with ‘Comment il fait des conneries, ce branleur!’ is particularly satisfying.
While it is not particularly gauche to say, ‘Mon Oeil,’ it will make one sound like a native. The way that this tiny phrase is best used is as a response to when someone tells a completely unbelievably ridiculous story. One should pull lightly at the skin jut below the eye, just to show some pink of the underside. Hold this for as long as it takes to utter, ‘Mon oeil,’ and then release. Look directly at the tall tale teller as this happens. It works best if the bass quality of the voice is dropped an octave for emphasis upon how much the tale is completely unfathomable. ‘Mon oeil’ literally means ‘my eye’ although it is similar to saying ‘my ass.’
Great additions, Jules. I especially love “Comment it fait des conneries, ce branleur.” C’est geniale ca.
My favourite by far…
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d’enculé de ta mère.
That’s fantastic, Zac. Of course many swear words is better than one, so the more you put together the better.
Salut la gang de freaks! Hello to all the freaks out there! You don’t know about Quebeckers!? Vons ne connaissez pas les Québécois? It shows! Ça paraît! lolllllllll… ici, au QC, on sacre! Here in QC, we swear! Hostie de criss de tabarnak! That’s pretty nasty! Tu’m fais chier!
Cusses? Cusses? CUSSES?
Curse words.
Curses.
Learn2English.
#4: Salop ( masculine version) it’s written ” salaud” by the way
great posting
“Ta gueule – it does not really have an exact equivalent or translation in English”
“la gueule” just means “the mouth”. So, “Ta gueule!” means: “Your mouth!” , with the silent hint of “shut it now, really”
i like this
Con/conasse/connard
C’est des conneries! (Say-day-KOHN-ree)
I was an english teacher through the assistantship program and I learned every single one of these while in France.. but never more than merde in a french classroom. Great post Julie.
100% accurate. Had a french exchange student come to my school and play soccer with our team – he used #’s 1 & 2 so much that even we learned them
As a french I can say it’s a very good list !
I’d correct a little bit the #4. In fact french say “Fils de pute” to say “son of a bitch” but never use “Fils de salope”.
“Pute” could be translated as “whore”, but “salope” could be translated as “bitch”.
“Salope” can occasionnaly have a friendly meaning, used with humor in the right time with the right person (meaning she really loves sex for example). You can’t do that with “pute” which remains very insulting.
For my part I like using “vieille catin” with my friends, but it’s not very commonly used .”Catin” is the old word for “whore”. You may say “vieille catin” in a humorous way, to a friend who forgot to give you back money for example.
To complete the list :
“Vas te faire enculer”, ” Vas te faire mettre” and “Vas te faire foutre” are commonly used, meaning “go fuck yourself” (it actually means that someone fucks you, the anal way xD). As usual, depending on the situation and the people you’re saying that, it can be a humour touch or very insulting (especially the “Vas te faire enculer” one), so use with caution
Bâtard : I think it’s “basterd” in english and that english people use it the same way.
Salope, Je m’en fou stupide. Casse-toi!
The one word I can’t seem to figure out is “fucking” when it’s meant in a kinda positive way. Like, fucking awesome, or I fucking love that. Any ideas?
va te faire foutre!
“Mais ta gueule putain, tu racontes que des conneries ! Tu fais chier espèce de connard de merde, allez casse-toi pov’con ! ”
It’s perfect !!
“Abruti ! Ferme ton putain de clapet à merde et va te faire foutre ! t’es vraiment qu’une sale petite merde ambulante ! enfoiré de peigne-cul ! “…
which would mean :
“You Moron ! Shut your fucking shit trap and go fuck yourself ! you really are a dirty walking piece of shit ! You fuckhead ass-kisser !”
@Chrisc :: the impressive “fucking”, like in a positive way would be translated in the same way in frenceh :
“Fucking awesome” would give “Putain ! c’est trop bon”
“I fucking love that” would give “Putain ! j’adore ça”…
The diffrence is that you will start your sentence with the “Putain” to express the fact that it is impressive, and you may use superlative words to express how impressive it is (“cest TROP bon”).
The next time a frog upsets me with bad manners, I have a few choice words to rebuke them with, a very useful list indeed.
Parles a mon cul, ma tete est malade.
You should also quote the movie “Matrix Reloaded”, in which the Merovingian says:
“I have sampled every language, French is my favorite. Fantastic language. Especially to curse with. ‘Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d’enculé de ta mère!’ You see… It’s like wiping your arse with silk.”
merde FTW !!
as simple as ’shit’.
Can I just correct number 2? “ca pute” doesn’t mean anything as it’s not grammatically correct. The only way of saying “this whore” is “cette pute”. BUT, I think the insult you meant to write was “sale pute” which literally means “dirty whore”.
I’m French and thought that post hilarious! thanks!
I personally use “putain” A LOT, add to it my southern accent and people not used to it cringe at hearing it hehe
Funny post but my goodness – so many grammatical errors! I respectfully recommend you ask a French friend to proof-read any French you write in future.
And my all-time favourite is “Je t’emmerde”. I love the looks of horror that appear on people’s faces as I start to explain what it literally means. Despite its colourful meaning, it is basically used in much the same way as the English use the expression “Piss off”, as in: “I disagree with you – please go away”.
Hey, just wanted to say that I thought this post was great. I’m on an exchange year in a french speaking country at the moment and I think this will be really useful. And to the people who were correcting the grammar mistakes…it was just a fun post and some of you were very rude, particularly Nancy. There really is no need to be so unkind, I’m sure you could have found a nicer way to point out faults.
Thanks, Dan. I appreciate the kind words. Glad you enjoyed the list. While I am part French and I spent much time traveling and living in the country, I am not a native speaker. That does not mean, however, I didn’t learn how to properly cuss when living in Paris. Besides, since when was cussing such a grammar focused affair?
@Chrisc & Arnold : You do not need to put “putain” at the beginning of a sentence in order to use it positively as in “fucking awesome”. In fact, when you say “c’était un putain de repas!” would mean “it was a fucking good dinner”, no need to put the “good” as it is implied, “c’est un putain de match!” means “it’s a fucking cool (often soccer) game”. Putain is one of the most versatile word in the french language that I know of, I have heard the word used five times in the same sentence with a different meaning each “fucking” time. You can be creative too.
Beside, these are good cuss words you shoot on instinct, for real insults, I do prefer more elaborate sentences as in: ” Dans la chatte à ta mère ya des marins qui chantent” or “mes couilles sur ton nez”
old slang can also be very powerful like : trainée, morveuse, avorton, malheureuse pouffiasse,…
or not : olibrius, galopin, fripouille!… (seriously, dont use them, you are embarrassing yourself)
Vous avez compris oui ou merde?
What?, no one uses “Mange ma chat!”, “Suce ma verge!”, or Baise mon cou!”
in quebec we would say “enfant d’chienne” for son of a bitch,
and we use a lot of church word to swear, witch we often conjugate…for example we can say “calisse” as in english we say fuck or shit, and if I say “decalisse” it means piss off, go away.
it’s very well explained here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_French_profanity
Va tu faire an (not sure how to spell it but sounds like) queue-lay. That’s my favourite F you equivilent.
My written french is awful.
Merci for this list. I will be traveling to Paris next May and while I may not use any of these (well, maybe a couple) it will be nice to know what I am being called.
This is quite good, I seldom see posts on topics like this. Keep up the great work!
Regards,
David
Malaysia Asia
My personal favourite would be “vas te faire foutre”, followed by “putain d’enculé de saloperie de merde”.
What I love about the french language is that you could just make rows and rows and rows of expletives providing you have enough vocabulary to do it; “putain de connerie de merde de saloperie de cul de bite de…etc.”
French for me is always like a beautiful, well-crafted double edge sword.
A few corrections:
“ca pute” does not mean anything. Maybe you meant to say ’sale pute’ (dirty whore).
“ce me fait chier,” is incorrect. (‘ça me fait chier’ is).
“fils de salope” : can be said but “fils de pute” is more frequent.
“foutre” is not the verb for ‘to fuck’ but rather for ‘to cum’
and my great aunt WHOM I lived with
English is also important
My favorite vulgar French phrase is not really a swear, so much of an expression.
“Papillion d’amour.” It sounds very nice, and even literally translated, it sounds pleasant: “the butterflies of love.” But despite all that, it is the French expression for crabs. The STD, crabs.
Hey, i’m french: Bordel de merde! Pétasse! Putain d’sa mère! Enculer d’sa mère! Bâtard! Putain ça m’casse les couilles! J’en ai rien à foutre/à branler/à battre! Wah la salope! Connase! Connard! Salaud! Pédé, pédale, tapette! Casse moi pas les couilles! Putain ça m’pete le cul (c’est ma préférée)! Putain comment y s’affiche! Fermes ta gueule! Trou d’cul! i’m sure that i miss a lot of other swear but i make later.
“Mais quelle bande de nazes vous faites, têtes de noeuds”.
which litterally says ” u’re a bunch of crazy nerds”.
Grate Post dude..
Just check out below video..
http://bestworldstuff.blogspot.com/2009/11/amazing-dancing-skills.html
..usually teachers (I am one) will say that swearwords are a sign of restricted and narrow-minded use of (any) vocabulary; this said, however, there are bad words which are not of necessity swear-words and swear-words which are not necessarily bad words nor are they always an indicator of limited glossary in any language; while not particularly drawn to expletives at times they do remain the only option, if only to surprise your often arrogant and presumptuous opponent..but not to be advised in all context and, if you are a teacher, definitely do discourage your students from saying swearwords!
Cheers,
oh by the way this is a cool article!
Raffaella
ps I’m Italian why do I come up as from USA?
Cheers whoever replies,
Raffaella
You haven’t been sworn at until by an Italian. French is too beautiful. If they swear at you you will ask for it again.
The thing is, with such a complex grammar and rich, ancient vocabulary, french is an efficient language to swear with – a real cuss word has far much more impact when properly pronounced, because it adds another layer of insults (you can cuss better than the person you’re swearing at) on top of the insult proper.
“Résidu de sperme de brontozaure pestiféré” is an insult that uses nothing but normal, not vulgar, words, and which translates into “residue (as in, bastard child) from a plagued brontosaurus’ sperm”; but, while the sentence in english is rather awkward, in French, it just flows.
You can, on top of that, use perfectly common words, not even from the ‘vulgar’ registry, and insult someone until his/her ears turn purple in rage.
While ‘connard’ was indeed used by president Nicolas “Napoleon” Sarkozy (the Revenge), our Very Small leader is probably the least refined of all French presidents – who could pretty much all swear at and insult someone to self combustion, all by quoting great authors and waxing poetry – or merely ridicule them.
One example, was for example someone calling Jacques Chirac “connard” – to what he answered “Delighted [Mr. Connard]! [Let me introduce myself,] I’m Chirac.” [trans. notes: bracketed parts are implicit in French in the implied context]. In short, this way our former Big Red Button pushing president turned the ‘connard’ into ‘Mr. Connard’, and onto the swearer.
‘Patate’, which is the common name for potato, is a mild insult often used instead of ‘connard’ (especially with children present); ‘morue’, or ‘thon’, which is the French for cod (yes, the fish) or tuna (ditto) usually have as target unbearable women (either from looks or behavior, often both). These expressions are so common that, simply miming throwing a fishing line (adding the ‘zzzz’ sound for effect) and revving it in amongst a gaggle of giggling coeds stands for effect.
A perfect list, which is going to come in very handy next time I’m in Paris. You should do a Youtube video to help this Scotsman get his pronunciation correct….
what is being requested w/ the word Website. 1st words i ever learned in Spanish o.s. hi school, were cuss words.
cheers. we grew up around Quebec people of Canadian-French origin, & it would seem their French is not so good.
k.t.f.
i think the response to an introduction— ‘enchante’ is a beautiful example of civilized speech!!!
Be careful, Canadian French has had 400 years to drift away from French French. But, to their credit, they didn’t butcher the language like US Americans did with English (who, on top of adding words and modifying pronunciation, made a mess of the grammar – which is, in itself, worse: for creating words and expressions is at least a natural part of a language’s life). They also speak it with a thick accent, but it is easily understandable and not completely alien.
Now hearing a Frenchman speak with a big Marseillais accent, THAT’s a challenge. You don’t want to listen to me when I do that
You should hear a London Brit pestering after MS Windows and Office’s “improper” spelling of words in menus. It ain’t pretty, oh no Precious, not pretty at all. They used to get bad grades at school for those mistakes, and now they pay good money for products that display the same errors!
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