# Décidément !



## DearPrudence

Hello

I know there have been threads about "décidément" but my request is a bit different as I'm looking for "décidément" used in "isolation"

For example, 3 voitures m'ont grillé la priorité sur la route & à la 4°, je vais me dire:
*"(Bah) décidément !"
*I think we imply: *"Bah décidément, ils se sont passé le mot/ils ont tous décidé de me faire *** /c'est bien ma veine aujourd'hui "*

Another example:
you're written something on a chat or something else & you keep on making a mistake:
*je suis dzçue
euh, pardon, je suis "déçie"
déçue
décidément *
implying: *"décidément, j'arrive pas à écrire aujourd'hui/décidément, je suis vraiment nulle, moi/décidément, j'arrête pas de faire des fautes"*

I think the common point is that you say that after things that repeats themselves (that's how I see it  Sorry for the rubbish explanation)

Any ideas? I must say I have none 

Merci beaucoup


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## curly

DearPrudence said:


> I think the common point is that you say that after things that repeats themselves


Quite so,
indeed,
(At least that's what I' say)

Decidedly would work nicely too


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## Suehil

In the same circumstances, I would say 'That's it!" or 'I've had enough!' or 'that's it, I've had enough!'


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## DearPrudence

curly said:


> Quite so,
> indeed,
> (At least that's what I' say)
> 
> Decidedly would work nicely too


Euh, I don't want to sound rude but how would that work in the 2 examples I've provided (in bold characters, not including the explanations)? 

Hum, that's more like it though for instance, in my second example, it's more a mild criticism addressed to yourself, you're not really fed up with yourself. The smiley quite conveys the tone you would use here.


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## wildan1

or
_What's the deal here? Everybody keeps going ahead of me!_


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## Suehil

I see what you mean, DP, I was looking more at the context.  How about 'It's just not my day!'


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## curly

reading it at second time I think, 

Typical

I go out without an umbrella, it's the day that it rains, as usual. typical, just typical.

PS Sorry DP , I was thinking of the other phrases from someone else's point of view. Something Sherlock Holmes would say to Watson when Watson made a few errors and then corrected himself. I think typical would work in both cases.

I got the wrong end of the stick when reading DP's examples, typical...


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## david314

This is _an interjection of frustration _(with _a touch of despair_) which is quite common in America:  Typical! / How Typical! / Just typical!


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## mickaël

david314 said:


> Typical! / How Typical! / Just typical!


Ça sonne plus comme notre "évidemment !". (Comme d'habitude... avec une pointe d'agacement). Alors qu'avec "décidément", on ne s'attendait pas à ce que ça se produise. C'est (souvent) agaçant et à la fois surprenant.


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## david314

For an American interjection of _annoyance and confusion  + _, I am partial to widan1's_, _*What's the deal! *


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## wildan1

Or simply, _Oh man....! _(with voice trailing off and maybe a sigh_--man_ does not refer to anyone or change according to the speaker's or listener's gender)


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## DearPrudence

Just to come back on the "*typical*":
actually it's _not _typical. Fortunately for me there are not 3 drivers who fail to yield the right of way to me every day. But here, it happens three times in a row & the fourth time that's a bit of an annoying coincidence.

*"Oh, man!" *would work here though it couldn't be exactly the same tone as "décidément" (it can be close to "surprised" in some cases). Sorry for being so annoying.

No, don't worry, I'm pleased. Thank you very much for your kind help 

Just one last situation for the road 
You've never heard a word before & suddenly you read it on WR, then you hear it once more on the radio, then on the TV & you hear it in a conversation on the very same day. I suppose you could say:
*"Tiens, bah décidément ... (c'est marrant ça : j'ai jamais entendu ce mot & tout à coup je l'entends 4 fois !)"*


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## marget

It happens to me all the time!  I will consult my resident psychologist for the proper term to define this phenomenon.  I am in constant search of "le mot juste".


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## wildan1

DearPrudence said:


> Just to come back on the "*typical*":
> actually it's _not _typical. Fortunately for me there are not 3 drivers who fail to yield the right of way to me every day. But here, it happens three times in a row & the fourth time that's a bit of an annoying coincidence.
> *"Oh, man!" *would work here though it couldn't be exactly the same tone as "décidément" (it can be close to "surprised" in some cases). Sorry for being so annoying.
> No, don't worry, I'm pleased. Thank you very much for your kind help
> 
> Just one last situation for the road
> You've never heard a word before & suddenly you read it on WR, then you hear it once more on the radio, then on the TV & you hear it in a conversation on the very same day. I suppose you could say:
> *"Tiens, bah décidément ... (c'est marrant ça : j'ai jamais entendu ce mot & tout à coup je l'entends 4 fois !)"*


 
Here you could indeed say *W*_*hat's the deal!?--*I'd never heard that word before and all of a sudden I hear it four times in one day_

or_ Unbelievable!_
or_ When it rains it pours! _(maybe a bit old-fashioned)


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## DearPrudence

I've forgotten to thank you 
Actually thinking about the case with the cars, "when it rains it pours" came to my mind ...


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## Suehil

The saying (at least in BE) is actually 'It never rains but it pours'


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## DearPrudence

DearPrudence said:


> you're written something on a chat or something else & you keep on making a mistake:
> *je suis dzçue
> euh, pardon, je suis "déçie"
> déçue
> 
> décidément*


Just because someone told me you could say "f**k".
I've just realised that you could say that if it were the person you're talking to who's doing that. It's not even harsh or critical but rather quite neutral or slightly amused ...


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## Tresley

Hello DP,

How about: *'Well, really'!* = 'Bah, décidément'!

Without swearing, it's the sort of thing that I would say in BE.

3 cars pushed in front of me on the road = *'well, really'!* 'The cheek of it'!

I can't type today = *'well, really'!* 'I'm not with it today'!

I hope this helps.


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## marget

marget said:


> Just one last situation for the road
> You've never heard a word before & suddenly you read it on WR, then you hear it once more on the radio, then on the TV & you hear it in a conversation on the very same day. I suppose you could say:
> *"Tiens, bah décidément ... (c'est marrant ça : j'ai jamais entendu ce mot & tout à coup je l'entends 4 fois !)"*





			
				wildan1 said:
			
		

> It happens to me all the time! I will consult my resident psychologist for the proper term to define this phenomenon. I am in constant search of "le mot juste".


I agree with wildan's "unbelievable".  I might even say "Incredible" or "I can't believe this"  or "Get a load of this"!

By the way, the term that explains never hearing/seeing something and then it's all around you is synchronicity, I think.


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## LMorland

Tresley said:


> How about: *'Well, really'!* = 'Bah, décidément'!
> 
> Without swearing, it's the sort of thing that I would say in BE.


Dear DP, 
I like all the anwers you've received.  But they do seem, in aggregate, to illustrate two things: 
(1) that the range of a word -- especially an idiom -- in one language is rarely duplicated in a second.  For it seems to me that the answers that best suit the 'traffic scenario' are not the best answers for the 'faute de frappe' scenario.
(2) that idioms of such a type are often regionally-specific.  I love Tresley's _"Well, really!" _ But I cannot utter that phrase myself without putting on a (mock) British accent. 

Finally, although I pride myself on trying to use swear words as little as possible -- they discourage nimbleness of mind  -- I have to admit that, if I were alone, in the first instance I might utter *f**k* and in the second, *s**t *!


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## wildan1

> that idioms of such a type are often regionally-specific. I love Tresley's _"Well, really!" _But I cannot utter that phrase myself without putting on a (mock) British accent.


Thanks for the insight, LMorland. Tresley's suggestion didn't sound quite right until I "heard" it in my mind with the British accent--understated tone and all!


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## DearPrudence

Décidément, cette expression caméléon n'est pas facile à traduire. En tout cas, merci à tous  Fortunately my awful kind of English accent allows me to use Tresley's "Well, really!" 

And one last example for the road:
Imagine a team and one player hurt his knee, another one his foot, then another one has the flu & then the coach or whoever might say: "Bah, décidément ..."

Voilà, voilà, encore merci tout le monde, c'est parfait


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## mtrevarton

Yo everyone. first post! ooh exciting.

In British English, the most obvious translation for me would be
*"Oh what!"* which we use a fair deal in the UK: captures that quality of an interjection that décidément has. I think it would fit pretty much all the situations in which décidément could be used too.

I certainly would discourage use of four-letter swearwords: sounds vulgar enough by native speakers, and most often very unnatural by non-native speakers. What do people think? Not sure that it is very American-sounding, mind you.


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## wildan1

DearPrudence said:


> Décidément, cette expression caméléon n'est pas facile à traduire. En tout cas, merci à tous  Fortunately my awful kind of English accent allows me to use Tresley's "Well, really!"
> 
> And one last example for the road:
> Imagine a team and one player hurt his knee, another one his foot, then another one has the flu & then the coach or whoever might say: "Bah, décidément ..."
> 
> Voilà, voilà, encore merci tout le monde, c'est parfait


Well, if it's a recurrent problem on a sports team, then _"What the fuck!"_ would be fairly predictable and not shocking expression for a sports-team context.

Often written in emails or text messages as_ "WTF"_


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## LMorland

Bonjour, mtrevarton, and welcome to the Forum!

It's always nice (and somewhat rare) that a person's first post is a contribution, rather than a question, and I thank you very much.

As an American, I can confirm that *"Oh*[,] *what"* doesn't sound familiar to me ... _except _as a variation of *"What the f**k!" * I have a friend (a brilliant linguist who, however, enjoys swearing) who says that a lot in such circumstances.

But to get back to DearPrudence's original examples, that phrase would be uttered in the first instance (being cut off by successive drivers) but not the second (unable to stop making typos).

P.S. I didn't see wildan1's post until after I posted the above, so we independently arrived at *WTF! *
* * * * *​By the way, based on what I learned in this thread, I happened to bring up *décidement *in conversation just last week as an example of a French locution that was untranslatable in English.  My friend, an American English teacher married for 30 years to a Frenchman, agreed with me. 

So maybe the British _weltanschaaung_ is more similar to the French than is our New Worlders'.


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## mtrevarton

Hey guys and cheers for the welcome!

I think there is definite cultural difference going on here! In British English I certainly wouldn't use "What the ****" in the situations I'd use décidément in French. I agree that at a football match it's all good, but for example, if you're talking to a stranger in a supermarket when the lemons keep falling off the shelf as quickly as you can pick them up and put them back, I certainly wouldn't! At least in southern UK, saying f*** in public is still quite tabou! I've known people to get thrown out of bars and trains for saying it! 

ciao


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## LMorland

Wow -- getting thrown off a train for saying f**k! I would really like to witness that someday. 

That said, I hasten to add that I do not talk like that in public (I mentioned above that I _might _use that expletive _if alone_), as it is, as you say is the case in (only southern?) UK, still quite taboo in the U.S. as well.  

In your lovely example, if lemons were falling off the supermarket shelf as fast as I could pick them up, I'd probably mutter, _*It's really not my day! *
_
P.S.  I agree with you about foreigners swearing: we often sound like third-rate thespians. I, for example, naturally tend to let slip _merde! _or _mince! _in a French context, and it rolls quite naturally off my tongue.  However, a second later I 'hear' myself, and I think that I sound a bit stagey.


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## curly

Someone said this to me(or at least to herself about me) recently after I dropped my phone for the fourth time that day. I think that, at least in Ireland anyone else would have said

"Ah, sure why not..."


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## funnyhat

LMorland said:


> Wow -- getting thrown off a train for saying f**k! I would really like to witness that someday.
> 
> That said, I hasten to add that I do not talk like that in public (I mentioned above that I _might _use that expletive _if alone_), as it is, as you say is the case in (only southern?) UK, still quite taboo in the U.S. as well.
> 
> In your lovely example, if lemons were falling off the supermarket shelf as fast as I could pick them up, I'd probably mutter, _*It's really not my day! *_


 
Yes, to use curse words in public, around people you do not know, is still very much frowned upon.  In a conversation with friends, it's obviously different - but even then, using lots of them in conversation can make you sound a little immature if you are older than, say, 30.


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## seadew

Charlie Brown would say "Good grief!" in a couple of these examples and I think I would too.


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## philipmay

Bonjour,

I've read over all these posts and the word that comes to mind as a translation for  «décidément» would just be the word "*figures*."

This is a fairly common saying in English (at least US) and reflects a repeated action that has an absurd element to it but not really something that has specifically happened before.

If many things have gone wrong during the day and then driving home three cars cut in front of you or something you might mutter to yourself "figures," or "that figures."

Sort of like if you added up all the things that have gone wrong, it would total to an absurd figure or number.


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## Kelly B

Yes, _that figures_ makes sense to me as well.


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## ottorivers

Je pense que "Damn!" convient assez bien au niveau du sens, bien qu'il soit un peu trivial, mais il correspond à la sensation d'impuissance que l'on ressent devant ces évènements qui se répètent (souvent de manières différentes) nous empêchant d'atteindre notre but. Ce sentiment d'être maudit, mais que l'on prends avec une certaine résignation, tellement la situation en devient ridicule. Peut etre est il trop vulgaire.  ?!


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## WordRef1

ah, bon! Je pense que "damn!" semble bien approprie (et pour moi c'est pas trop vulgaire).


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## LMorland

Bonjour, ottorivers & WordRef1, et bienvenue au Forum!

Yes, I agree with you, ottorivers. Have you spent time in an English-speaking country?    "Damn!" (said with a note of obvious exasperation) would do the trick for me ... and I agree with WordRef1 that it's not too vulgar, as would be s**t or f**k.

Yet how impoverished is my language that we English speakers must resort to a simple, all-purpose swear word in such situations, decidedly having no proper equivalent to _décidement_!


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## toban

DearPrudence said:


> I know there have been threads about "décidément" but my request is a bit different as I'm looking for "décidément" used in "isolation"
> 
> For example, 3 voitures m'ont grillé la priorité sur la route & à la 4°, je vais me dire:
> *"(Bah) décidément !"
> *I think we imply: *"Bah décidément, ils se sont passé le mot/ils ont tous décidé de me faire *** /c'est bien ma veine aujourd'hui "*
> 
> Another example:
> you're written something on a chat or something else & you keep on making a mistake:
> *je suis dzçue
> euh, pardon, je suis "déçie"
> déçue
> décidément *



For the first situation, I would probably say "*come on!*" (with both words stressed). I also like my mother's "*For crying out loud!*" (My friends laugh when I say it, but I still like it.)

For the second situation, I'd say "*sheesh!*" or "*finally!*"


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## ottorivers

Thanks for the welcome! I used to live in Britain, and I'm reading, watching and listenning to a lot of english language stuff. I know translating interjections like this is quite hard, because each country has it's own way to express feeling according to a situation. In the "décidement" case, I still think that "Damn" is the best translation, I had to use it in a movie translation to make subtitles and after a long self-brainstorming, that was my conclusion. I had to share it as I don't think the other solutions convey the exact same feeling, even if not bad in certains situations.


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## bédéiste

I know i'm a little late to the party here. But i heard an actress say décidément! in "La Boum" sarcasticly and after looking at the explanations here i do think "indeed" orginaly mentioned is right, however a bit stuffy for the most of us. So, i think a more natural "Unbelievable!" would translate well for most americans. Atleast, it works well as a translation for the scene in the film.


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## franc 91

Oh my goodness! - Oh bother! - I'm sorry I'll say that again. Oh I'll try saying that again. - Oh what a muddle (I'm in).


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## newg

Je réouvre le sujet, car l'autre jour j'ai croisé 3 fois la même personne en l'espace d'une journée. 
Dans ma tête je me suis dit "décidément !". L'expression résumant toute ma pensée... 
J'ai essayé de le traduire et le seul mot qui m'est venu à l'esprit est "Gosh!"

Does it sound 'English' ?


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## LMorland

Not in this instance (at least not to me). 

If I knew the person, and liked her or him, I might say (out loud), "Gosh, we've got to stop meeting like this!"  [Although I don't believe I use the word _gosh_ much anymore, come to think of it.  It feels a bit old-fashioned, at least to my American ears.]

But as for the _internal monologue,_ in that situation I'd say to myself,

_*Unbelievable! *_​


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## wildan1

In this setting I might say _What the heck! _or _What the hay!_ (Instead of my more "expressive" soccer field example provided earlier)

--_heck/hay_ are both euphemisms for _hell_


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## LMorland

Wildan, your internal monologue is très bien élevé ! 

But that reminds me, these days a lot of young people in the States (even my 11-year-old niece, although I don't quite approve) say _*"What the...?!" *_[with a deliberate pause at the end]

At the end of the day, we English-speakers really do lack an equivalent for _décidément !_


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## Emmanuel59

Bonsoir à tous!

Petite question idiote mais dont je ne trouve pas réponse, comment peut-on traduire "décidément!" dans le sens ou par exemple, je croise une personne pour la deuxième/troisième fois en peu de temps?

Merci d'avance!


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## SteveD

It would depend on how well you know the other person.

I would probably say, "Hello, again!" with a smile (as in "re-bonjour !").  More familiarly, you could say, "We must stop meeting like this!".


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## LART01

Hello

some suggestions:

You again!
a small world indeed!


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## electronicgadgets

I would add "*Oh honestly!*"  /  "*Oh for goodness' sake!*"   Meaning you protest and don't accept it.  
"Typical!" is a good translation if you protest but DO accept it. 

I also like Charlie Brown's "*Good grief!*" as suggested earlier.


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## Sabetha

Bonjour à tous, je voudrais mieux comprendre l'état d’esprit de décidément. 
Pourrais-nous dire que c'est quand même négatif? 

Type si tu croise une personne 3 fois et tu pense décidément! c'est parce que tu ne voudrais pas? 

Merci!


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## franc 91

Non, ce n'est pas vraiment négatif, je pense que c'est plutôt ironique ou amusant.
(suggestions) What a coincidence ! - I seem to have seen you before somewhere !  - That's the third time today !


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## wildan1

Sabetha said:


> Type si tu croise une personne 3 fois et tu pense décidément!


Sometimes, in a playful way, we say to each other that we keep meeting, _We have to stop meeting this way!*_

*Stereotypical phrase of secret lovers who are feeling guilty.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

In the case of running into someone for the third time in a day, I like SteveD's suggestion in #45: "We've got to* stop meeting like this!"
*I'd prefer 'got to' over 'must' here — AE?
For the cascade of lemons, "Oh, geeze!" (to avoid 'taking the Lord's name in vain'). People also say things like "Oh, fuck...ryin' out loud!" to cover up their lapse into obscenity, as well as stopping short with "What the...!" if they catch themselves in time (see LMorland's #43)/


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## Aristide

D'après le dictionnaire, l'adverbe "décidément" (au moins dans certains contextes) signifie :
"En définitive", "tout bien considéré"
( = In the end, all things considered).

Quand on voit un évènement qui se répète, ça prouve sans doute quelque chose.
Ça prouve par exemple que le destin est farceur, ou qu'il a de la suite dans les idées.
Je pense que l'expression "that figures" traduit un peu cette idée.

Ce n'est pas "What a coincidence!", mais carrément : What a series of coincidences !

On devrait pouvoir en tirer (de façon très décidée) une conclusion définitive.

Mais en pratique, quand on s'exclame "Décidément !", c'est toujours sur le mode ironique, pour exprimer sa perplexité, son étonnement, son agacement, sa déception, son amusement... Ça peut aussi avoir un nuance négative. 

Si par exemple, pour la troisième fois de la journée, on se retrouve nez à nez avec quelqu'un qu'on n'a pas envie de voir, c'est très agressif de s'exclamer "décidément !". Ça revient à dire : Encore vous !

On a un autre exemple dans le premier message du fil : Décidément, ils ont tous décidé de me faire * * * . C'est une façon d'exprimer son irritation de façon plus ou moins agressive.


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## joelooc

"What next ?!"     ?


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## Captain Ishido

I just thought about that :

"Oh, really ?"


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## rrose17

One word I was surprised not to see here that I hear regularly is “Seriously?”  Always said as a question. But WTF (said with just the letters or the whole thing) has become extremely common as has the shortened “What the…?”


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## Sabetha

Merci à tous des vôtres réponses. 

Ma langue maternelle c'est pas le français, donc pour moi c'est difficile de trouver le bon contexte émotif (et c'est beaucoup important pour moi). 

Je l'ai vu plutôt comment 'm****, on se croise toujours aujourd'hui!'. Je ne sais pas si c'était agressif (je pense plutôt frustré) et dans ce cas la j'essaierai de faire quelque chose pour améliorer la relation. Mais c'est une personne que je ne connais pas très bien et je ne veux pas frapper sur ses nerves '(^_^).


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## Nanon

C'est beaucoup moins agressif que de dire _m***_ . Et selon l'expression de la personne, ça peut même être positif : il peut y avoir un sourire, pas forcément de la frustration ni de l'énervement.


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## Locape

rrose17 said:


> One word I was surprised not to see here that I hear regularly is “Seriously?”  Always said as a question. But WTF (said with just the letters or the whole thing) has become extremely common as has the shortened “What the…?”


I was just thinking about _Seriously?!_ or _Come on! _(post #36), or simply _Really?!_.
(You mean WTF _said _or _written with just the letters_? Would you say orally _Double U Tee Ef_??)


Sabetha said:


> Je l'ai vu plutôt comment 'm****, on se croise toujours aujourd'hui!'. Je ne sais pas si c'était agressif (je pense plutôt frustré) et dans ce cas la j'essaierai de faire quelque chose pour améliorer la relation. Mais c'est une personne que je ne connais pas très bien et je ne veux pas frapper sur ses nerves '(^_^).


Suivant le contexte, ça se rapproche de _sul serio?_ ou _ma dai!_ :


*ma dai!* _inter__ironico_ (finto stupore)Come on! Seriously? _interj_

('Je ne veux pas lui taper sur les nerfs' )


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## rrose17

Locape said:


> You mean WTF _said _or _written with just the letters_? Would you say orally _Double U Tee Ef_??


Yes. Even _WTF, man?! _Check it out here.


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## Sabetha

Locape said:


> Suivant le contexte, ça se rapproche de _sul serio?_ ou _ma dai!_ :
> 
> 
> *ma dai!* _inter__ironico_ (finto stupore)Come on! Seriously? _interj_
> 
> ('Je ne veux pas lui taper sur les nerfs' )


Je commence à penser que c'était plutôt bien en fait 

Merci


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## Son of a preacher man

I think these cover the general case:
"What's happening here?"
"What's going on here?"
with inserted expletives/emphatics according to preference.

"Clearly it's not my day" 
"Has the world gone mad?"
might also be appropriate.

Though if I met someone three times in the same day I'd probably go for something like " If you stop following me, I'll stop following you"


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## Locape

rrose17 said:


> Yes. Even _WTF, man?! _Check it out here.


Oh, that's interesting! I've never heard it in movies or TV series, so I didn't know. I'm only familiar with _What the...! _if people can't say the word _fuck_.


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## Louis XI

'Seriously?!'


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