Why do I need to know genre?

Because genre is used all the time in conversation in France, even if people aren’t talking about anything to do with gender or movies. 

What does it mean?

Genre is roughly pronounced jahn-ruh, though the last bit is very understated so you end up saying more of a nasally ‘jahn’.

Aside from being the French term for ‘gender’, it can also be translated as ‘type’, which may explain why we use it in English to discuss the different categories for films and novels.

It has many uses in French, but you’ll mostly hear people use genre as a filler word to imply a certain degree of vagueness or nonchalance, similar to the way English speakers will (over) use the word ‘like’.

So genre can precede an estimation, and mean ‘about’ or ‘more or less’. For example, Le mec faisait, genre, 2 mètres et 120 kilos. (The guy was, like, 6 foot 6 and 260 pounds.)

It can also be used to vaguely describe a certain ‘type’, often when giving examples, as in the following example: J’aime bien les chanteuses françaises genre Zaz ou Carla Bruni. (I like French singers, like Zaz or Carla Bruni.)

Since genre is a filler word, you may also hear it pop up in conversation without any real meaning or explanation.

As you can probably tell, using genre in this way probably won’t make you sound more educated or professional (though it may make you sound more natural or laid-back), so it’s probably best to save it for informal social situations or conversations with teenagers.

Use it like this

On a bu genre 5 bouteilles de vin avant de sortir. – We drank like 5 bottles of wine before going out.

Je la trouve prétentieuse, genre trop belle pour traîner avec des gens comme nous. – I find her pretentious, like, too beautiful to hang out with people like us.