2025 is your year to finally understand French — really understand it.
You’re dreaming of real conversations with locals, of confidently navigating a café menu, of understanding more than just “bonjour” when someone speaks to you in Paris. You’re motivated…
Until you hear an actual French person speak. 😅

Let’s Talk About the Elephant in the Room: French People Speak FAST.

It’s not in your head — we really do speak quickly. But more importantly, we speak in contractions. A lot of contractions. That's one of the biggest reasons learners struggle to follow spoken French.

So today, let me explain how these contractions work and why they matter.

French Should Feel Smooth… Or Something’s Off

Something I always tell my students:

If it doesn’t roll smoothly off your tongue, there’s probably a mistake.

In French, one long sentence often flows like one big word. It’s super fluid, and if it doesn’t sound like that, something’s missing — or wrong.

Why? Because in French, we hate when two vowel sounds follow each other. That’s a huge reason contractions and dropped sounds are so common.

This Isn’t “Street French.” It’s Just… French.

You might be thinking:

“Okay Cassy, but that’s only informal French, right?”

Wrong. This happens across the board, no matter someone’s background or how “proper” they speak. It’s not about education level or slang — it’s about efficiency and rhythm. Spoken French has evolved this way naturally.

In fact, this happens in English too — think about how madam becomes ma’am. Same idea!

The Two Main Types of Contractions in French

To really understand native speakers, you need to know about two key types of contractions:

1. La Syncope

This is when we drop a letter or a sound in the middle of a word.
Example:

• Madame becomes ma’am in English.

• In French, monsieur often sounds more like m’sieur.

• Quelque can become que’que, especially in and around Paris. So quelque part (somewhere) sounds more like que’que part.

It’s subtle, but once you hear it, you can’t unhear it — and understanding becomes so much easier.

2. L’élision

We didn’t get to it in full detail in the video yet, but here’s a sneak peek:
This is when we drop a vowel at the end of a word before another word that starts with a vowel. You probably already know this from things like je aime becoming j’aime. That’s élision in action!

Real Examples, Real Voices

To show you how this actually sounds in everyday life, I used examples from real online videos — different accents, different people, different backgrounds. Because it's not just me — everyone speaks like this. And you need to recognize these patterns if you want to understand French in the wild.

Why Do French People Speak So Fast? Let Me Break It Down For You

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