Sound like a French native - use this word instead of 'rien'

French you don't learn at school: que dalle

The French word for ‘nothing’ stems from the Latin rem, the accusative of the catch-all res, meaning ‘thing’ or ‘object’. [Res in Catalan means nothing.]

Confusingly, over time it developed a negative connotation – thereby shifting its significance from ‘something’ to ‘not a thing’. How different Edith Piaf’s defiant interpretation of Charles Dumont’s 1956 song ‘Je ne regrette rien” would be if she had in fact regretted everything!

More French language tips: what does quand même actually mean?

Native over common language

In this column we bring you alternative ways of saying common French words – ones which will convince people that your French skills are more than passable. So by using ‘que dalle’ instead of rien you really will be going native.

It is a more colloquial version, akin to someone saying ‘zilch’, ‘diddly squat’, ‘bugger all’ (excuse our language) or ‘nada’. The latter, a Spanish word of course, comes from res nata, meaning a thing just born, and thus small and insignificant. French people use nada sometimes, too.

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Que dalle

Que dalle is an expression that is usually preceded by verbs like “valoir”, “ne trouver” and “ne comprendre” – ie. to be worth, to find or to understand ‘nothing at all’. It is generally accepted that the phrase came from the word “dail” in Romani, a Gypsy language, which means “nothing at all”. But another suggested origin is a poultry-related one from Occitan – “only wing to eat”, ie. not much.

Another argot – if more obsolete – ‘nothing’ expression to drop in and impress the French with is ‘que pouic’. So “Je ne vois que pouic” translates as “I cannot see a thing”.