When the Video Call Goes Wrong
Explain frozen screens, dodgy Wi-Fi, a crashing VPN and noisy neighbours in casual French while working from home.
Most French homes now have la fibre, but outages still happen, and when the box (the internet router) fails the usual fix is to switch to your phone's 4G or 5G. Working from home is common, and many companies have an IT helpdesk, le support, that you call when the VPN won't connect. Colleagues tutoient each other, and casual words like ordi, pourri and ça rame are everywhere.
- 1
Ma connexion est vraiment pourrie aujourd'hui.
My connection is really rubbish today.
- 2
Tu coupes, là.
You're breaking up.
- 3
Ton image est figée.
Your video has frozen.
- 4
Je ferais mieux de me connecter depuis mon portable.
I'd better join from my phone.
- 5
Je coupe ma caméra, ça ira mieux.
I'll turn my camera off, it'll work better.
- 6
Ça m'a éjecté de la réunion.
It kicked me out of the meeting.
- 7
Le son est décalé.
The sound is out of sync.
- 8
Mon ordi rame.
My computer is so slow.
- 9
Je dois redémarrer mon ordi.
I need to restart my computer.
- 10
Le VPN arrête pas de se déconnecter.
The VPN keeps disconnecting.
- 11
J'arrive pas à me connecter.
I can't log in.
- 12
Le lien marche pas.
The link doesn't work.
- 13
Y a beaucoup de bruit autour de moi.
There's a lot of noise around me.
- 14
Mes voisins font des travaux.
My neighbours are having building work done.
- 15
Désolé, mon fils vient de rentrer.
Sorry, my son has just come home.
- 16
On bascule sur un appel classique.
Let's switch to a normal phone call.
- 17
Tu peux répéter ? Ça a coupé.
Can you repeat that? It cut out.
- 18
Ça vous dérange si j'arrive avec dix minutes de retard ?
Do you mind if I join ten minutes late?
- 19
La fibre est en panne dans mon immeuble.
The fibre is down in my building.
- 20
J'appelle le support.
I'm calling the helpdesk.