Une retraitée ruinée par la voyance par téléphone
B2 French listening practice · French · Curated for upper-intermediate learners
What does 'soutirer' mean in French?
Soutirer is one of French’s most pointed verbs for extraction-by-manipulation. Soutirer de l’argent à quelqu’un (wheedle money out of someone), soutirer des informations (drag information out), soutirer des aveux (squeeze out a confession). The verb is heavier than obtenir: it carries the implication that the person handed over what you wanted because you played them.
In this segment, a retiree explains how phone voyants walked her through €44,000 of savings: « ils ont profité de ce que j’avais besoin de savoir [...] pour me soutirer un maximum de fric » (they exploited my need to know to wheedle the maximum cash out of me). Soutirer is exactly the verb for that pattern.
Vocabulary frequency
How common is the vocabulary in this B2 French listening practice listening practice?
General French frequency
Spoken French frequency
Words above this video’s level
Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s B2 level.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · Lexique 3.83 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.
- ▸On French news magazines like Envoyé spécial on France 2 and Cash Investigation on France 2 when reporters cover financial scams
- ▸In French legal coverage on Le Parisien and Le Monde when journalists describe fraud, abus de faiblesse, or police-interrogation tactics
- ▸In French crime fiction by Fred Vargas and Pierre Lemaitre where investigators soutirer des aveux during interrogations
- ▸In French consumer-protection segments on 60 Millions de consommateurs and UFC-Que Choisir when victims explain how they were emptied out