Regional French with Français de Nos Régions

Bonjour!

Pain au chocolat or chocolatine?
Yaourt or Yogourt?
How do you say “persil”?

Today, we’ll talk about Regional French with Mathieu Avanzi from Français de nos régions. In this interview, he’ll show us how different French can be, whether you’re in the North, the South, the East… of France but also in Belgium and Switzerland. We talked about vocabulary, but also pronunciation and grammatical uses.

I learned so much from Mathieu, I hope you do to.




Click here to discover Mathieu’s blog: Français de nos régions.
You can order his book “L’atlas du français de nos régions” by clicking here.

Et toi ?

What did you learn in Mathieu’s interview?
Who should I interview next?

Bonne journée,

Géraldine

Join the conversation!

  • Loved this segment. Two others: Belgian endive is “endive” in most of France; it is “chicon” in the Nord. Myrtilles are blueberries in France; they are called “bleuets” in Canada!

  • What was the usage of the “Y” Savoyard? I didn’t quite get that!
    I dearly loved the whole thing.
    Géraldine you asked great questions, Mathieu was a “gas” ( California slang for génial/ chouette,) BRAVO!

  • I found this video very interesting. I know there are regional variations for words in the United States, so it is interesting to hear that different regions of France have their own variations of their language. It seems that these regional differences is common to all languages.

  • I love linguistics! Merci mille fois pour cette intervue! For your information: “coup de glotte” is “glottal stop” in English – same meaning.
    Also, there are 2 tiny French (as in part of France) islands off the coast of Canada: Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Have you studied them?

    • Bonjour Abrub,

      Glad you liked it.

      I don’t think Français de nos régions has studied those islands yet. One day maybe?

  • A very interesting lesson, thank you both so much ~ a mini visit to the fascinating and varied world of the French language to start my day. Merci beaucoup ~~

  • Merci Geraldine!! Moi, je suis canadienne, nee a St. Boniface au Manitoba (le centre-ouest du pays) donc je ne suis pas quebecoise et le francais que je parle est un petit peu canadien/francais/belge. Mes arrieres grandparents sont venus au Canada de la France et de la Belgique et moi, je parlais en francais quand j’etais petite. Je l’ai aussi etudier au lycee et a l’universite et j’ai passe une annee magnifique en France 2014/2015. Les francais savaient que je n’etais pas francaises mais souvent ils ne savaient pas d’ou venait mon accent!! C’etait tres interessant de noter les mots differents qu’on utilise au Canada. Au lieu de gilet, on dit chandail. On porte les souliers au lieu de chaussures, les bas au lieu de chaussettes, les culottes (oui! c’est vrai!) au lieu d’un pantalon. J’ai appris beaucoup de mots nouveaux et ca m’a plu enormement. J’ai envie de retourner en France aussitot que possible. Autrement je vais oublier tout ce dont j’ai appris!

  • Merci d’avoir passé le temps sur ce sujet. Ça m’intéresse. Je voyage pour mon travail en France, en Belgique, au Québec et en Louisiane.

    Je travaille dans le domaine des télécommunications et j’étais heureux que vous parliez des différents noms régionaux pour les smartphones.

  • Also I heard Parisian French in Tahiti. And after living in Dijon for a year, I was told by a Parisian that I had a Burgundian acent but I wasn’t sure what that was!

  • Haha- Mes dix ans en Suisse-
    je pese sur un bouton – je n’appui pas! Et oui- soixante, septante , huitante, nonante….!

  • Thanks, that was fun and informative. I was going to take only 5 minutes and watch a portion .. I ended up watching the entire interview!

  • Fascinating. I live on the border of Normany and Brittany and here they say ‘ce tantot’ for this afternoon!

  • Get My Weekly Lessons

    In Your Inbox

    Join the 30,000+ French learners who get my premium spoken French lessons for free every week!

    Share this post!

    >

    Download this lesson as a PDF!

    Please enter your name and email address to get the lesson as a free PDF!