Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

For members

FRENCH WORD OF THE DAY

French expression of the day: Tu piges ?

In France, it's always good to have several ways to say you don't understand something at hand.

Published: 21 December 2020 12:27 CET
Updated: 27 August 2021 14:46 CEST

French expression of the day: Tu piges ?

Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

Why do I need to know tu piges ?

Because it’s a commonly used slang expression, which is easy to confuse with other variants of the same word.

What does it mean?

Piges is a French word that can mean different things depending on the context, but here means ‘understand’, ‘follow’ or ‘get it’.

Tu piges ? – You follow?

The verb piger means “understand and retain information,” according to French online dictionary l’Internaute.

Another French online dictionary defines it as “comprendre un truc” – ‘to understand a thing’.

It’s colloquial and not really suited for formal settings, so you would not say vous pigez ?, which is the politer version of tu piges.

Use it like this

On ne pouvons pas voyager car la quarantaine reste en place. Tu piges ou pas ? – We can’t travel because the quarantine is still in place. Do you follow or not?

Qu’est-ce que tu ne piges pas en fait ? – What is it you’re not understanding?

Je ne pige pas pourquoi tu t’énerves. – I don’t understand why you’re getting upset.

Synonyms

Tu comprends ? – You understand?

Tu captes ? -You get me?

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

8 favourite French Words of the Day

Every weekday The Local publishes a French word or phrase of the day. We try to focus on colloquialisms, slang, sayings (and a bit of swearing) – you know, the type of French you won’t learn in the classroom, but will hear all the time in the street.

This daily habit means we have a very extensive back catalogue – find it here – and we’ve picked out eight of our recent favourites.

Taxe lapin

The literal translation of une taxe lapin – oon-tax la-pahn – is exactly what you would expect – ‘rabbit tax’.

However, this is not a tax on rabbits, or even on rabbit owners. It is in fact a ‘no-show fee’ or charge levied on people who make appointments and don’t turn up.

Fortunately, we showed up with an explanation, here.

Banco

Banco – bain-koh – is essentially the French word for “bingo!”. It might be colloquial, but politicians have been known to use it when indicating that something someone else has said is correct.

There’s more, right here.

Radin

Radin – rah-dahn – is a less-than complimentary French term for a penny-pincher, someone who is or ‘miserly’ with their money.

We, however, are not in the least stingy with our definition.

Crevard

Speaking of words that definitely aren’t complimentary… Crevard – creh-varr – is a colloquial term that can be used to describe someone who looks ill or exhausted. It’s roughly equivalent to telling someone that they ‘look like death warmed up’.

Find out more, here.

À peine

À peine – ah pen – means ‘with or to pain’ or ‘with or to effort’, and therefore makes no sense in English. But in French conversation, it acts as an adverb meaning ‘hardly’, ‘barely’ or ‘scarcely’.

We make sense of it all, here.

T’as dead ça

T’as dead ça – tah dead sah – combines the French verb avoir (to have) with the English word ‘dead’. And it’s a good thing, apparently. Because it refers to ‘killing it’ in the positive sense. If you tell someone t’as dead ça, it’s congratulatory, like ‘great job, you killed it!’

Simple comme bonjour

Simple comme bonjour – sahm-pluh com bohn-jor – translates as ‘simple as hello’.

It describes something that is very easy or quick, the French equivalent to ‘easy as ABC’, or ‘a piece of cake’.

Our explainer is just as straightforward, too.

J’en ai marre

J’en ai marre – roughly pronounced Johnny Marr – means ‘I’m fed up’.

We discuss this charming phrase in more depth here.

Url copied to clipboard!