I don’t mean to offend anybody, and I’m sorry to be using vulgar French swear words, but as a French learner, it is important that you understand these French slang expressions, and even more so the intent behind them. However, I would encourage you to stay away from them.
If French slang sounds natural from a French native, slang is always stronger and has a much bigger impact when it is used by a foreigner.
The French Verb Foutre: Conjugation
The French verb “foutre” is very common in French. It’s actually a very old verb, which nowadays mostly means “faire” or “mettre”… and other less attractive meanings!
It’s part of a zillion French expressions, all of them being more or less vulgar, definitely slang… It can be used as a swear word, a curse an insult as well.
- Je fous
- Tu fous
- Il fout
- Nous foutons
- Vous foutez
- Ils foutent
Passé Composé: j’ai foutu
Adjective: foutu/e/s
Noun: un fouteur, une fouteuse
Old French noun: le foutre = sperm
Most of the time, the verb “foutre” can be replaced by “ficher” to make is a bit more colloquial… Je m’en fiche = I don’t care.
Master French politeness without hesitation and avoid embarrassing faux-pas.
17 French Swear Expressions With the French Verb Foutre
Here are a few uses of the verb “foutre”.
Notice “foutre” can be reflexive “se foutre” – and please forgive the vulgar expressions but all these are very common, and you will come across them in movies etc…
1. Elle ne fout rien de ses journées – she doesn’t do anything all day long
2. Cette fille est vraiment bien foutue – this girl has a really nice body
3. Il a laissé l’appartement en foutoir – he left the apartment in a total mess
4. Je m’en fous – I don’t give a shit
5. C’est le roi du je-m’en-foutisme – impossible to translate but literally, this means he is the king of the “I don’t give a shit” movement
6. On s’en fout comme de l’an quarante – another crazy idiom meaning “we don’t care”: literally, “we care as much about it as the year forty”.
7. J’en ai rien à foutre – I don’t give a rat’s ass
8. C’est foutu ! – it’s the end, it’s finished, it’s dead
9. Foutue bagnole ! fucking car!
10. Fous-moi la paix – let me be!
11. Je ne sais pas ce que j’ai foutu de mes clés – I don’t know what I did with my keys (foutre as faire)
12. Ils ont foutu le camp avec l’argent – they ran away with the money
13. Tu te fous de moi ? Tu te fous de ma gueule ? Are you joking? (at my expense) – Are you pulling my leg? – Are you kidding me?
14. Ce sont des fouteurs de merde – they are trouble makers
15. À la fin, il s’est foutu en l’air – in the end, he killed himself
16. Ce film m’a foutu les jetons (slang) / ce film m’a foutu les boules (vulgar) – this movie scared the shit out of me
17. Va te faire foutre – fuck off (much stronger in French – a real insult, never to be used lightly)
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