Texting in French: Useful Words & Abbreviations

Texting in French – Understanding the ki, kwa, kan, pk (who, what, when and why)

There was a time when it was enough to be able to converse in the boulangerie and skim read the local journal to get by in France. But what should you do when a friend sends you a message like ‘mrci pr le kfe’? The answer is to text them back… something like ‘PDP’ should do it. Here, FrenchEntrée reveals the ki, kwa, kan and pk of sending and receiving texts in French.

Getting started texting in French

A text – un sms
To text – envoyer un sms
Mobile phone – un portable
Charger – un chargeur mobile
Network – un réseau

French text speak

Who, what, when, where, why…

Qui – ki
Quoi – koi, kwa
Quand – qd / kan
Pourquoi – pk
Que – ke
Quel – kL

Basic text speak

C’est – C
Un/une – 1
Pour – pr
Comme – kom
Des – d
Donc – dc
Pas – pa
Pas de probleme – PDP
S’il te plait – stp
Merci – mrci

Greetings

Bonjour – bjr
Ca va – cv
Salut – slt
Bon journée – bj

Catching up

Quoi de neuf – koi29
Desolé – dsl
Hier – ier
Pendant – pdt

Je – j
Toi – twa
Vous – vs

Making plans

Qu’est-ce que – keske
Aller – go, alé
Faire – fR
Acheter – HT
Café – kfe
Cine – 6né

Aujourd’hui – auj
Demain – 2m1
Weekend – WE
Apres – ap

Bien sûr – b1sur
D’accord – dak
Excellent – xlt
Bien – b1

Signing off

A plus tard – @+, a+
A bientot – AB
Je t’aime – jtm