English to Quebec French: a phrase guide for daily life

English to Quebec French is the step from an English word to the word people use for it in Québec. This guide gives 35 everyday entries in five groups: daily life, shopping, transport, winter and work. Every entry in the tables is copied from Usito, the Université de Sherbrooke dictionary, or from the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), and each source describes it as used in Québec. For the wider picture, read Québec French vs France French and Canadian French. Swear words have their own page: Québec French swear words.

How do you go from English to Quebec French?

Start from standard French, then learn the Québec words beside it. The OQLF’s reference norm is standard French as used in Québec, and its usages can be shared by all French speakers or specific to Québec [1].

Usito, a dictionary designed in Québec [2], marks Québec usage with the label Q/C: the use is characteristic of the French used in Québec and widespread in Canada, though not necessarily found only in North America [3]. The tables keep two more Usito labels:

• Familiar: a register less socially valued than a standard or neutral use [4].
• Criticized: a use openly criticized in the main reference works used in Québec, shown with its standard French replacement. Most on this page are English borrowings [5]; liqueur douce extends an old French use instead [16].

Is there a Québec French translator?

If you are looking for a Quebec French translator, these public references can help:

• The OQLF’s Vitrine linguistique searches the Banque de dépannage linguistique and the Grand dictionnaire terminologique at once [1]. Dictionary results show a French term with its English equivalent, and you can put the English first [1]. In OQLF fiches, green marks preferred terms and red marks discouraged ones, and a region label means the term is mainly or only used there [1].
• Usito, made at the Université de Sherbrooke, lists Québécismes and words for typically Québec, Canadian or North American realities [2].
• TERMIUM Plus is the Government of Canada’s terminology and linguistic data bank, with equivalents of terms and expressions in English and French [6]. Its page does not present it as a guide to Québec usage [6].

This page is a phrase guide, not a translator.

What words do people use in daily life in Québec?

Which words will you hear when shopping?

How do you talk about cars, parking and the ferry?

What are the Québec words for snow and winter?

Which words will you hear at work, and which are discouraged?

One work word has travelled the other way. Usito says courriel (email) is considered of Québec origin and was the subject of an official recommendation in France [32].

The OQLF says cédule for a schedule is a borrowing of meaning from English schedule, long criticized and not part of the norm of French in Québec [34]. It says the verb céduler does not fit that norm either [36].

How should a learner use these words?

Understand all of them. A Q/C label alone is not a warning: the OQLF made dépanneur official in its Québec sense [3], and fin de semaine is its preferred term for the weekend [11]. The warnings are the labels familiar, criticized and discouraged. As a general rule of thumb, not a sourced finding: in a formal email, an interview or an exam, use the standard word from the table.

Common mistakes

• Treating every Québec word as slang. Many are standard in Québec, such as dépanneur and fin de semaine [3][11].
• Using a criticized word in formal writing. Usito marks char, bienvenue after “thank you” and lumière for a traffic light as criticized [19][5][23].
• Mixing up the meal words. Déjeuner and dîner name different meals in Québec and in France [8][9].
• Treating this list as complete. It holds 35 entries, a small part of what Usito and the OQLF describe.
• Relying on a word list from a blog, including this one. Dictionary pages change. Compare each Usito or OQLF page’s own date with the date at the top of this one.

See also: common French phrases and French-speaking countries.

See also: French quotes and sayings.

See also: French slang.

See also: Francisation Québec courses.

Sources