In today’s lesson we’ll look at a super useful and fun interjection: “Zut!”, which has many translations including “shoot!” and “darn!”. We’ll also cover two equivalent words “mince!” and “flûte!
zut
shoot, darn!
Zut – shoot, darn
Example sentences
All of the example sentences in this lesson are in the passé composé, a commonly used French past tense which I explain in this lesson.
Zut ! J’ai oublié mes clés !
Shoot! I forgot my keys!
The French combine zut with alors in the expression “zut alors!”. While alors on its own translates to “so”, the expression “zut alors!” still means “shoot!” or “darn!”. I cover alors in this lesson.
Zut alors ! J’ai laissé mon parapluie à la maison et il commence à pleuvoir.
Darn it! I left my umbrella at home and it’s starting to rain.
The French have two other commonly used equivalent words to zut which appear in these final two example sentences: “mince!” and “flûte!”.
Mince ! J’ai encore fait la même erreur !
Shoot! I make the same mistake again!
This final sentence uses the preposition chez, which most commonly means “at the home of”. I explain how to use chez in this lesson.
Flûte! j’ai oublié mon rendez-vous chez le médecin.
Darn! I forgot my doctor’s appointment.
Conclusion
Et voilà ! Now you know how to use zut! Now check out this lesson covering a similar interjection “bof!”, meaning “meh!” or “nah!”.
