Québec everyday vocabulary (char, magasiner, dépanneur)

Summary

Québec French shares its core lexicon with European French but differs in hundreds of everyday words, some preserved from older usage, some local coinages, and some with shifted meanings, the best known being char (car), magasiner (to shop), dépanneur (corner store) and the meal names déjeuner, dîner and souper.

Explanation

Québec French and European French are the same language, and the overwhelming majority of their vocabulary is identical. The difference learners notice is concentrated in a stratum of high-frequency everyday words: terms for objects, places, food, and family relationships that come up constantly in casual life. Knowing a few dozen of these is what separates someone who merely understands written Québec French from someone who can follow a kitchen-table conversation in Montréal or Saguenay. The items are not slang in the sense of being substandard; many are simply the ordinary, neutral words a Québécois uses without a second thought.

Several of these words are conservatisms, that is, older French usages that survived in North America after they faded or narrowed in France. The verb barrer for to lock (a door) belongs to this group, as does the broad colloquial use of char for an automobile, which echoes an older sense of char as a wheeled vehicle. Breuvage for a (cold) drink and the meal names below are likewise long-established usages rather than recent inventions. This conservative layer is one reason Québec French can feel both old and distinctly local at the same time.

A second group reflects life in Canada and local institutions. Dépanneur, a small neighbourhood convenience store, is the prototype; the word is built transparently on dépanner (to help out, to get someone out of a jam), since such a shop is where you go when you run short of something. Tuque (a knitted winter hat) and banc de neige (a snowbank) belong to the vocabulary of a northern climate, and poutine names a dish that originated in Québec. These words have no everyday European-French equivalent because the thing or the institution is itself local.

A third group consists of words that exist in both varieties but with a different default meaning or frequency. Magasiner means to shop or to go shopping and is an ordinary verb in Québec, where European French would more often say faire les magasins or faire du shopping; the noun magasinage corresponds to shopping. Présentement is the unremarkable Québec word for currently, at the moment, where France tends to prefer actuellement or en ce moment. Blonde and chum, literally a blonde and a (English-derived) chum, are the common neutral words for a girlfriend and a boyfriend or, more broadly, a romantic partner; in France these would be copine and copain.

The names of the three daily meals are a classic point of divergence and a frequent source of confusion. In Québec, the morning meal is the déjeuner, the midday meal is the dîner, and the evening meal is the souper. In contemporary France the same three words have each shifted one slot later: petit-déjeuner is breakfast, déjeuner is lunch, and dîner is dinner, with souper reserved for a late-night meal. The Québec system preserves the older Romance pattern still found in Belgium and Switzerland as well, so a Québécois inviting you à souper is offering supper, not a midnight snack.

Register matters, and it is not uniform across these words. Char and a number of the more colloquial items belong to relaxed speech; in a formal report or a news bulletin one would write or say voiture. By contrast, dépanneur, magasiner, présentement, courriel, and the meal names are fully standard within Québec and appear without comment in newspapers, government documents, and broadcasting. The social perception of a word is therefore item-specific: some mark casual register, while others are simply the regional standard with no informal flavour at all.

Spelling and pronunciation generally follow the same norms as the rest of the French-speaking world; the divergence is lexical and, in speech, phonetic rather than orthographic. Courriel (email), a Québec coinage from courrier électronique, is now widespread in official French generally and is a good example of a Québec word that has travelled. Fin de semaine for the weekend is the recommended and very common form in Québec, competing with the borrowed week-end that dominates in France. Learners should expect that the written, formal register narrows the gap with European French considerably, while informal speech is where the distinctive vocabulary is most concentrated.

Practically, the safest approach for a learner is receptive first: recognize these words when you hear them, and understand that char is not childish, dépanneur is not slang, and an invitation à dîner in Québec means midday. Producing them is welcome and natural once you are confident of the register, but mixing systems, for instance using the France meal schedule while in Québec, is the main way misunderstandings arise. Because the lexicon is large and partly fluid, this rule surveys the highest-frequency, most stable items rather than attempting an exhaustive list.

Examples

Je passe au dépanneur avec le char, veux-tu de quoi? — I'm swinging by the corner store with the car, do you want anything? (dépanneur (convenience store) and char (informal: car) are core Québec words; de quoi here means something / anything, where France French would say quelque chose.)

Ma blonde et moi, on va magasiner une tuque pour l'hiver. — My girlfriend and I are going to shop for a winter hat. (blonde (girlfriend), magasiner (to shop for), tuque (knit winter hat). France French: ma copine, faire les magasins, un bonnet.)

On déjeune à sept heures, on dîne le midi et on soupe vers six heures. — We have breakfast at seven, lunch at midday, and supper around six. (The Québec meal names sit one slot earlier than in France, where these would be petit-déjeuner, déjeuner and dîner.)

N'oublie pas de barrer la porte en partant. — Don't forget to lock the door on your way out. (barrer (to lock) is a preserved older usage; France French uses fermer à clé / verrouiller.)

Je suis présentement en réunion, je te rappelle dans une heure. — I'm currently in a meeting, I'll call you back in an hour. (présentement (currently) is fully standard in Québec; France would typically say en ce moment or actuellement.)

On se reprend en fin de semaine si la météo est correcte. — Let's try again at the weekend if the weather is alright. (fin de semaine is the usual Québec term for the weekend, where France overwhelmingly uses the borrowed le week-end.)

Je t'envoie les documents par courriel cet après-midi. — I'll send you the documents by email this afternoon. (courriel (email), a Québec coinage, is standard in formal and informal use; it is now also found in official French elsewhere.)

Le char est pris dans un banc de neige, faut le pelleter. — The car is stuck in a snowbank, we have to shovel it out. (banc de neige (snowbank) is winter vocabulary with no everyday single-word equivalent in France French (congère is the closest standard term).)

Veux-tu un breuvage? J'ai du jus pis de la liqueur. — Do you want a drink? I've got juice and soda. (breuvage (a cold drink) and liqueur (soft drink / soda) differ from France French, where boisson is the neutral word and liqueur means a liqueur (spirit).)

Common mistakes

Related rules

• Québec / Canadian French — overview
• Québec anglicisms and calques
• Québec grammatical features (a survey)