Gen Z French Slang phrases and words in English
This is the French no teacher will teach you — the language of French teens and twenty-somethings in group chats, TikTok comments, and late-night voice notes. It's a wild mix of verlan, Arabic loanwords, borrowed English, and gaming culture, mutating faster than any dictionary can track. Learn these ten and you'll stop sounding like a textbook and start sounding like someone French people actually want to text back.
10 phrases · meanings & example sentences
“Wesh”
The ultimate French street greeting, borrowed from Algerian Arabic ('wexta', meaning roughly 'what' or 'hey'). It works as 'yo', as 'hey', and even as an exclamation of disbelief on its own. It's casual to the bone — say it to friends, never to your boss — and it instantly tags you as someone who knows the real spoken French.
- Wesh frérot, ça va ou quoi ? — Yo bro, you good or what?
- Wesh, t'as vu ça ?! — Yo, did you see that?!
- Wesh, il est où le rendez-vous ? — Hey, where's the meetup?
“Askip”
A contraction of 'à ce qu'il paraît' (apparently / from what I hear), squeezed down for speed in texts and speech. It's pure Gen Z economy: take a whole phrase and crush it into one punchy word. Use it to share gossip or rumours you're not fully vouching for — it adds a built-in 'don't quote me' shrug.
- Askip ils sont ensemble maintenant. — Apparently they're together now.
- Askip le prof est absent demain. — Word is the teacher's away tomorrow.
- Askip c'était une catastrophe, la soirée. — Apparently the party was a disaster.
“Le seum (avoir le seum)”
From Arabic 'sèmm' (poison/venom), 'avoir le seum' means to be bitter, salty, gutted — that specific cocktail of anger and disappointment when something doesn't go your way. It's far more expressive than 'être déçu', and it's everywhere in French youth speech. Missed the bus, lost the game, got left on read? Tu as le seum.
- J'ai trop le seum, on a perdu à la dernière minute. — I'm so gutted, we lost at the last minute.
- Elle a le seum parce qu'elle a raté le concert. — She's salty because she missed the concert.
- Ça me met le seum, ce truc. — That thing really winds me up.
“Bg (beau gosse)”
Texting shorthand for 'beau gosse' — literally 'handsome kid', i.e. a good-looking guy (and increasingly used for anyone attractive or just generally cool). It shows how French Gen Z turns full expressions into two-letter initials for the group chat, exactly like English 'bg' or 'lol'. You can call a friend 'bg' as a hype-compliment even when looks aren't the point.
- T'es trop bg sur cette photo ! — You look so good in this pic!
- Le nouveau, là, c'est un bg. — That new guy is a stunner.
- Merci de m'avoir aidé, t'es un bg. — Thanks for helping me out, you're the best.
“Chiller”
A franglais verb built straight from English 'to chill', conjugated like a normal French verb (je chille, on a chillé). It means to relax, hang out, do nothing in particular — and it perfectly captures how Gen Z French absorbs English and bends it to French grammar. If you can conjugate this, you've understood how half of modern slang is born.
- On va juste chiller à la maison ce soir. — We're just gonna chill at home tonight.
- J'ai passé le week-end à chiller. — I spent the weekend doing nothing.
- Viens chiller avec nous au parc. — Come hang with us at the park.
“Trql / tranquille”
'Tranquille' literally means 'calm/quiet', but Gen Z uses it as an all-purpose 'no worries / it's all good / chill', often clipped in writing to 'trql'. It's the French cousin of 'it's all good' and can answer almost anything reassuring. Note how French youth abbreviate by gutting the vowels — 'trql' is instantly readable to anyone under 30.
- T'inquiète, c'est trql. — Don't worry, it's all good.
- On fait ça demain, tranquille. — We'll do it tomorrow, no rush.
- Ça va ? — Ouais trql, et toi ? — You good? — Yeah chill, you?
“Ça passe crème”
Literally 'it passes creamy', this means something goes perfectly smoothly, no friction at all — 'crème' here is slang for excellent/smooth. It's a brilliant example of how French slang turns a random everyday word into a marker of quality. Use it when a plan, an excuse, or a tricky move works out flawlessly.
- J'ai rendu le devoir en retard mais ça passe crème. — I handed the assignment in late but it slid right through.
- T'inquiète pour la réservation, ça passe crème. — Don't worry about the booking, it's totally fine.
- On s'est incrustés à la fête et ça passe crème. — We crashed the party and got away with it clean.
“Le crush”
Borrowed wholesale from English, 'le crush' is the person you have a crush on — and it filled a real gap, because French had no single neat word for it. Watch the grammar flip: in English 'crush' is your feeling, but in French 'mon crush' is the human you fancy. It's one of the clearest signs of how online English reshapes French youth vocabulary.
- J'ai croisé mon crush ce matin, j'étais en PLS. — I ran into my crush this morning, I was a wreck.
- C'est qui ton crush en ce moment ? — Who's your crush right now?
- Mon crush a liké ma story. — My crush liked my story.
“Être en PLS”
'PLS' is literally the medical acronym for 'Position Latérale de Sécurité' — the recovery position you put an unconscious person in. Gen Z hijacked it to mean being completely destroyed: exhausted, heartbroken, dying of laughter, or wrecked by stress. It's dark, dramatic, and very funny, and it shows the Gen Z habit of repurposing official acronyms for comic exaggeration.
- Après l'exam j'étais en PLS. — After the exam I was completely wrecked.
- Il m'a raconté un truc, j'étais en PLS de rire. — He told me something, I was dying laughing.
- Trois heures de sport, je suis en PLS. — Three hours of sport, I'm absolutely done.
“Ratio”
Straight from internet culture, 'ratio' (often 'tu t'es fait ratio' or just 'ratio') means getting publicly shut down — when a reply or clapback gets way more likes than the original post. French teens use it both online and out loud to mean 'you just got owned'. It's a perfect snapshot of how social-media mechanics have become spoken slang among Gen Z.
- Il a essayé de clasher mais il s'est fait ratio. — He tried to throw shade but got totally ratio'd.
- Ratio. — Ratio. (= you just got destroyed)
- Son commentaire s'est fait ratio en deux minutes. — His comment got ratio'd in two minutes.
