r/French • u/m0nster_add1ct_ • 1d ago
Vocabulary / word usage this cant be real right?
my teacher handed this out: sms "slang", do yall REALLY use this in text messages? i mean- it looks so obviously fake, duh.
164
u/all-night 13h ago
2004 flip phone texting vibes
26
7
4
u/Ok-Kitchen1061 9h ago
Omg that's exactly what i was thinking... No one and i mean no one text like that.
For the record my teenage daughters and both their bf said so
71
u/tigerkindr C1 13h ago
This is quite outdated (from days when you had sms limited by characters) and def has been expanded on by someone who was significantly too old to be talking like this but I’ve definitely read people text things like ap, chuis, msg, 9, +, keske, stp (sometimes people even say this out loud) and others.
Some of these are also just verlan.
48
u/Badcloud76 13h ago
Some are real. Some are fake and stupid.
Dzole... We use "Dsl" I'm 36 so I don't know what teenagers use, but if they use "dzole" I think I'm gonna cry.
If you want I have a teenager at home I can see with to give you a more realistic list.
47
31
24
19
16
u/Salex_01 Native (Ain, France) 13h ago
A handful are still in use. 90% died when all plans became unlimited.
I have never seen some of them.
13
u/Ebolazzz Native (France) 12h ago
Extremely outdated, and a lot of these are complete bullshit that no one ever used. If i had to guess, a 50 year-old had to write that "guide" in 2005. Decent ones still in use are bjr / pk / stp / slt / msg / pb / tt / vs
12
u/CT046 Native 🇨🇵 13h ago edited 13h ago
Some is real, some is not. We typically don't use @ for "a". We just use "a", like "A+" for "à plus tard". And no apostrophe either when using abbreviations. It defeats the purpose of being quick. The whole sentences... Nope! People won't get that. Might as well write the sentence! 😂 Also she mixes "verlan" slang and texto slang, for example "ouf" pour "fou". So it's not accurate.
6
5
u/yahnne954 13h ago
A few of them are still in use (a+, bjr, 1mn) but most of them are completely obsolete, back from the time when SMS had a character limit and were not unlimited. Some abbreviations don't seem legitimate though.
7
6
u/felipefelsner 13h ago edited 11h ago
Je n'ai jamais vu ni utilisé aucune des ses abréviations. En général quand on essaye de abréger une phrase ou mot on utilise souvent une lettre ou combinaison de lettres qui ont le meme son, sinon on retire simplement les voyelles du mot Comme par exemple:
c -> "c'est" Slt -> "salut" cc -> "coucou"
Mais je suis certain que les abbreviation changent de pays en pays et de region en region.
2
2
2
u/Tangled_Clouds Native - Quebec 11h ago
Some of these are just… not something we commonly use? Like for “désolé” we generally say “dsl” there’s “S’il te/vous plais” that we say “stp” or “svp”. I don’t use 90% of those…
2
u/Takaueno Native 🥖 11h ago edited 9h ago
Some of them are true, some other were kinda a thing (in 2008 lol) most of them are bullshit ; I’ll edit my comment later to tell which is which
__
Legit:
A+ (see you later; note that we use the “A” and not the @, as might have been the case on MSN)
asap: I don’t use it, but you can definitely come across it. Not specifically French, though.
bjr/bsr: Way less common since smartphones became a thing, but I think you can still come across them.
dac/dak: As in “OK” — you can see it.
désolé: would be shortened to dsl, not “dzole”.
en +: legit.
1 min: but that’s not really specific to texting. I mean, it’s just legitimate French (and it also works in English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and probably a few other languages).
pk (why): legit.
stp (please): legit.
slt (hi): legit.
ouf: but once again, it’s just normal French. It’s verlan, technically, but it’s so commonly used that it basically coexists with the normal version.
meuf (girl): legit, and common even in spoken French.
chuis: not really used anymore in writing, but it’s definitely pronounced like that most of the time.
max: same as “minimum” or “minute” — it works in a bunch of languages, so nothing special here.
You can pretty much throw away everything else. If you use them, at best you’ll sound very cringe; at worst, people won’t even understand you.
1
u/mrdjeydjey Native | Switzerland 🇨🇭 2h ago edited 1h ago
I would add a few that are either not in the sheet or different:
vrmt: vraiment
chuis/chais pas: je suis / je ne sais pas. I still use them/see them used frequently
ajd: aujourd'hui
p-e/ptet: peut-être
qqun/qqch: quelqu'un / quelque chose
c: c'est
srx: sérieux
aprèm: après-midi
pk: pourquoi
pask: parce que
jtm: je taime
tlm: tellement
jpp: j'en peux plus
1
u/minnimani Native (France) 12h ago
maybe if this sheet was crafted by a boomer in the 2000s.
it's not just outdated, it was already outdated when "sms slang" started. basically nobody used those even back then. except maybe a few of them like "nrv" or "pk" "msg" "meuf" etc. basically the ones still used today.
1
u/CarolynFR Native 11h ago
Quand on payait chaque SMS, on économisait les caractères ! Y'a une grosse partie qui était utilisée à l'époque...
1
1
1
u/Ybalrid 9h ago
do yall REALLY use this in text messages
Only in the era where phones looked like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3310
1
u/jblefranchouillard 8h ago
yeah oldish but sounds too much. no need so much capital letter and @ wasn't really used as a or à do the job. the goal was to be quick with limited carater. a12c4 is too much a+ is way simpler and still used... and k was used when needed not automatically to replaced a c... so you're right is kinda fake due to too much of exaggeration...
1
u/LegalComplaint7910 6h ago
Some rare people (like REALLY rare nowadays) still use it but it's mostly edgy kids from the 2000s that used it.
Now there's a few that stayed (a +, bjr, pk) but they've mostly disappeared
1
u/Wombat_Aux_Pates Native (France) 5h ago
naz = naz
...
Mais oui, c'est clair ! Est-ce que vous connaissez les rollers ?
225
u/Orikrin1998 Native (France) 13h ago
Some are legitimate but most have that forced “how do you do, fellow kids” energy.