Learn French Slang : Le Verlan

When learning French, I am certain that you’ve already said, thought or even screamed into a pillow, at least once : Why is French so hard?

The pronunciation, the grammar, the syntax, the accents… Everything makes it difficult. However, after studying it so hard and for so long, when you finally think you’ve seen it all, that nothing in French can surprise you anymore, that’s when you find yourself eavesdropping on the next table and hear something like “meuf, laisse béton le keum était trop chelou! Trop zarbi cette histoire…” and suddenly you feel like digging a hole in your plate so you can rest your head on and cry out in despair realising what you’ve just heard was, in fact in French, but you didn’t get anything at all. All those years of studying evaporating in front of your eyes…

So now if you have an A2-B1 level in French you could understand this sentence better if it was said as such: “Femme, laisse tomber le mec (l’homme) était trop louche! Trop bizarre cette histoire…” Even though, there might still be some unknown words you can still get the idea. That girl is talking about a weird guy she met… Anyway, that’s not your problem. Your problem now is to know why this sentence wasn’t written like this to begin with! What kind of trickery is that?

Well, my friend, you’ve just experienced your first taste of the famous French slang-system: Le verlan

French Slang : Le verlan.

Let’s look at these words closely!

Meuf becomes Femme (woman)

Laisse béton becomes Laisse tomber (let it go)

Keum becomes Mec (guy/dude)

Chelou becomes Louche (shifty, sleazy)

Zarbi becomes Bizarre (weird, bizarre)

Now probably you start seeing stuff but you’re still quite unsure what it is.

Let’s take the word “zarbi”, my favourite. How on earth can this word mean “bizarre”? Well look… Zarbi… come closer… zar bi… *abracadabra* bi zar… bizarre! Here you go.

Let’s do the same thing with “Chelou”.

Chelou… Che Lou… *abracadabra* Lou Che… Louche!

French is so fun and magical, isn’t it?

Yes, the “verlan” consists of switching the syllables of the same word to make it… slangy. It’s even funnier because the word “verlan” is actually an example of this process, being the inversion of the French word for “reverse”, l’envers (pronounced lan-ver, hence “ver-lan”). Mind-blowing, isn’t it?

So how do you make a French slang “verlan”?

As in French we don’t actually pronounce every single letter in a word so it’s more of an oral language, “verlanizing” words depends upon the pronunciation and not the direct inversion of letters. There are actually four distinct steps to creating a word in verlan :

• The addition or suppression of the final vowel
• Cutting parts of the word
• The inversion of syllables
• The deletion or elision of several syllables of long words before or after the inversion

That’s why Femme become meuf and not “mefem” or mec becoming keum.

Right now, I’m pretty sure you just have one question in your head : WHY?

Why do they do that?

Well… Do you know Voltaire? The great Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher? Did you know that his real name was François-Marie Arouet? So, “Voltaire” was his pen name. I would’ve chosen a pen name too if I was called François-Marie… Anyway, Voltaire’s family is from a small village called “Airvault” (pronounced Air-vo). But look at this! Air-vault becomes Vault-air which is pronounced Voltaire! *shocking*

So we do believe that Voltaire was, in fact, the creator of the Verlan. Another funny fact about him; he used to call Diderot, another philosopher, “Platon” (French for Plato). However, whenever he wanted to talk about him in his letters without actually identifying him, he would write “Monsieur Tompla” (Tom-pla = Pla-Ton).

Then later, in the 19th century, this slang spread among the prisoners so that the warders don’t understand them. Then again, in the WWII the verlan was used by French to trick the Germans and it made its place in the language.

Today the verlan is mainly used by young people, it is also linked with the youth in the ghettos or suburbs. It is also widely used in rap and hip hop songs.

Never listened to French rap? Start here.

Here are some famous verlanized words that you should know :

Ouf = Fou (crazy)

Chamné = méchant (mean)

Relou = lourd (weird)

Gen-ar = argent (money)

Zyva = vas-y (go on!)

La reum = la mère (mother)

La teuf = ma fête (the party)

Vénère = énervé (angry)

Nawak = n’importe quoi! (nonsense!)

Teubé = bête (idiot, stupid)

Reup = père (father)

Reuf = frère (brother)

Not sure how to remember those words? Then you should read my blog post about “Top 10 ways to learn French vocabulary”!

Want to learn more? Check out my blog post about the best resources to learn French !

And if you’re afraid of not having time to study it look at : How to learn French when you’re too busy?

On Bla Bla French you can also have one-on-one lessons with me via Skype or Zoom. Book your Free trial session now!