Hover a line for its translation; hover a word for its meaning. Tap 🔊 to hear it.
Generate a brand-new dialog on any topic, using this lesson's 0 vocab words — plus any words you add below.
Sign in to generate dialogues. It needs a pass — the first ten lessons of every course are free either way.
Recognise, don't perform
This is the third time this course has made the same recommendation about an in-group variety — joual in lesson 63, the Chinese course's internet language, and now nouchi — and it is worth setting out the reasoning once properly rather than just repeating the instruction. **Why comprehension is worth real effort.** Nouchi is not marginal in Abidjan: it is the ordinary speech of young urban Ivorians, it is in the music, in advertising, in comedy, and increasingly in print. A visitor who understands only standard French will follow institutional Côte d'Ivoire and miss everything people say to each other. The same holds for the equivalent varieties in Kinshasa, Douala and Dakar. **Why production is a different matter.** Three reasons, and the third is the real one. First, it moves fast, so last year's word marks you as out of date rather than current. Second, it is local — nouchi is Abidjan and will not serve you in Dakar, as Ousmane says. Third, and decisively: in-group slang does identity work. It says I am one of these people. A visibly foreign speaker using it is making a claim the listener can see is false, and the effect is not fraternity but embarrassment — for them as much as for you. 'Ça ne passe pas' is exactly the right phrase, because the failure is social rather than linguistic. **What does work.** Understanding, and saying so. 'J'ai compris mais je ne vais pas essayer' is received well. Asking what something means is received very well — people enjoy explaining their own slang, and the explanation is usually a better conversation than the slang would have been. And one or two words of the local language, offered plainly rather than performed, land differently from slang: 'jërejëf' in Dakar is a courtesy, 's'enjailler' from the same mouth is a costume. One qualification, because the rule is not absolute. If you live somewhere for years, work with people, and the register becomes genuinely yours, this changes — plenty of long-resident foreigners speak the local variety and are heard as speaking it rather than imitating it. The difference is time and relationship, not technique. Two years into a language is not that point, and the honest move is to wait until somebody else tells you it has arrived.