Bonjour, mes chers apprenants en français!
Let’s be honest that it can be hard for learners to hear and understand spoken French with shortened forms and contractions due to the fact that they don’t match what the words look like on paper.
You may be more familiar with the written form of a word and may not have encountered its shortened form in your French studies. As a result, you may not realise that native speakers of French use these shortened forms in casual conversation, which can make it more difficult for them to understand what is being said.
This phenomenon happens in English too of course: Saying ‘tix’ instead of ‘tickets’, ‘limo’ instead of ‘limousine’, ‘uni’ instead of ‘university’.
Watch my video to discover everyday French Words that we shorten:
❤️ Useful French Words that We Shorten: Help for Fast Spoken French ❤️
Here are other examples of shortened nouns in French:
1. Appartement → Appart
2. Restaurant → Resto
3. Bibliothèque → Biblio
4. Chocolat → Choco
5. Cigarette → Cig
6. Téléphone → Tel
7. Vélociclette → Vélo
8. Ordinateur → Ordi
9. Musique → Musi
10. Télévision → Télé
11. Dictionnaire → Dico
12. Photographie → Photo
13. Infirmerie → Infi
14. Médicament → Médic or Médoc
15. Après-midi → Aprèm
16. Contravention → Contra
17. Institutrice → Instit
18. Anniversaire → Anniv
19. Cinéma → Ciné
20. Association → Assoc
We also shortened proper names often:
1. Mathilde → Math
2. Nathalie → Nath
3. Alexandre → Alex
4. Christophe → Chris
5. Jean-Baptiste → JB
6. Benjamin → Ben
7. Émilie → Émi
8. Frédéric → Fred
9. Guillaume → Guigui
10. Laurence → Lolo
11. Vincent → Vince
12. Carine → Caro
13. Antoine → Tonio
14. Sébastien → Seb
15. Philippe → Phil
16. Nicolas → Nico
17. Julien → Juju
18. Valérie → Val
19. Stéphane → Steph
20. Thomas → Tom
21. Delphine → Delph
22. Sophie → So ou Soso
23. Fabien → Fab
24. Jérôme → Jéjé
25. Sandrine → Sand
26. Olivier → Olive
27. Yannick → Yan
Hope you enjoyed learning about shortened words and names in French.
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