📖LearnModule 14 · Lesson 1 of 30Proficient User · CEFR C2, continuedUnit 1 · Les niveaux de langue
Le familier, partout
Module 14 of the free French course (CEFR C2, continued), lesson 1 of 30: A dozen everyday words have a familiar twin you will hear constantly and should not write. On this page: 8 words with their genders and respellings, the rule, a watch-out line and the audio — the study notes behind the workbook's lesson 1.
The words
French
English
Say it
la bagnole
the car (informal)
lah bah-NYOHL
le bouquin
the book (informal)
luh boo-KA(n)
le boulot
the job (informal)
luh boo-LOH
le fric
the money (informal)
luh FREEK
le truc
the thing (informal)
luh TREWK
marquer comme familier
to file as informal
mahr-kay kohm fah-mee-LYAY
le collègue de bureau
the office colleague
luh koh-lehg duh bew-ROH
courant à l'oral
common in speech
koo-rah(n) ah loh-RAHL
Respellings follow the course’s say-it key; the stressed syllable is in capitals. Print this lesson’s flashcards (PDF) — the words on the front, the English and respelling on the back.
Hear the words
Each word is read twice — say it back in the gap. Computer-generated voice; credits on the course page.
La règle · The rule
A dozen everyday words have a familiar twin you will hear constantly and should not write. Une voiture is une bagnole; un livre is un bouquin; le travail is le boulot; l'argent is le fric.
Et aussi · And also
They are not slang exactly — a French newspaper would avoid them, a French colleague would not. Understand them, mark them in your head as familier, and keep writing the standard word.
Attention · Watch out
Understand them, never write them: une bagnole in a cover letter reads as a mistake, not as ease. And le truc is the word you reach for when the real one has gone — a listener hears that too.
Do it now — on paper
Say all 8 words aloud twice from the respelling, then once from the French spelling alone — begin with la bagnole.
Copy every word with its accents on paper; then cover the English column and write each meaning back from the French.
Write two sentences of your own that get the watch-out line right, then the two practice pages of workbook lesson 1 in Module 14 are the written half of this page.
This free course is the reading half. The writing half — write-in lessons, daily practice pages with built-in review, self-checks and a full answer key — is the companion workbook series, The French Ladder: one workbook per module, fifteen in all, released band by band with the Basic band (Modules 1–5) first.
Keep these words
Turn this lesson’s words into flashcards, then space your reviews — the two habits the research behind our study guides backs hardest.