What does “un screen” mean in French?

Les Français décrivent la dernière photo sur leur téléphone

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B1 French listening practice · French from France · Picked for people who know some

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un screen
French tech anglicism
slangy “screenshot,” borrowed from English; the native term is “une capture d’écran”

In casual French, un screen is a screenshot — lifted straight from English “screen(shot)” and made masculine: un screen, des screens. It’s an informal tech borrowing of the younger, online generation. The textbook term is une capture d’écran, which is what you’ll see in menus and official writing. So both name the same thing; un screen is just the quick, spoken version.

The clip catches the register split live: a young Parisienne says her last photo was “un screen de la représentation de Joséphine Baker,” and the interviewer immediately asks, “C’est quoi un screen?” She answers by switching to the fuller anglicism — “j’ai un screenshot” — never reaching for capture d’écran at all. That’s the giveaway: among younger French speakers, screen and screenshot are the natural words, while capture d’écran can feel formal or instructional. French dictionaries flag screen as an anglicisme informatique. Note the related verb too: screener / screenshoter (“to take a screenshot”).

How common are the words?

How common are the words in this B1 French listening practice video?

95%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common French words
Most of the words in this video are common French words.

How common in written French

90.9%
Top 1,000
95%
Top 2,000
98.4%
Top 5,000

How common in spoken French

89.3%
Top 1,000
98.7%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000

Harder words in this video

These words are harder than B1. Here is what they mean.

membership
3×
Not in top 5,000
membership
janettes
2×
Not in top 5,000
jetable
2×
Not in top 5,000
disposable
org
2×
Not in top 5,000
a structured group
print
2×
Not in top 5,000
print
immortaliser des moments
1×
capture special moments in time

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · Lexique 3.83 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.

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