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The word in French is generally written "hein" https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hein_(interjection) https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hein_(interjection)

• dgellow 6y ago
  Hmm, I think that would be “hein ?” then, without the question mark “hein” can have a lot of different contextual meanings that are quite different from “huh”.
  • elliekelly 6y ago
    Can you give some examples? I’m only conversational in French at best so maybe I haven’t encountered other uses yet but I’m struggling to think of a sentence with “hein” where “huh” wouldn’t fit in the English translation. Would you say it’s more like the Canadian “eh” that can be tacked on to just about anything?
    • forty 6y ago
      I think in most cases it will indeed be used in an interrogative tone, and written followed by a question mark to reflect that. It can also be used to mean "isn't it", to ask for agreement, approval (very informal). Example: il fait beau, hein? (The weather is good, isn't it?). The proper way to say "isn't it" is "n'est ce pas", but it's very rarely used in practice, and English people speaking French are often caricaturized ending all their sentences with "n'est ce pas", which is not very far from reality in my experience ;)
    • dgellow 6y ago
      It's not the kind of thing you will find in formal discussions, but it's a very common interjection in spoken french. I cannot tell you the rules, it's just something people use to complete their sentence or communicate something about the context. (all the examples below are from real chat discussions) Exemple 1: "Non mais sérieusement, c'est pas très malin, hein..." Translates to: "Seriously, that's not really smart..." "hein" here presses on the fact that the speaker is a bit impatient or annoyed. Example 2: "Je suis pas forcément anti Facebook hein!" Translates to: "I'm not necessarily against Facebook!" Here it is used to communicate that there may have been some misunderstanding in the context of the discussion, and making clear that even if I said stuff negative toward facebook, I'm in fact not anti-facebook. Example 3: "J'ai aucune expérience avec Haskell hein" Translates to: "Just so you know, I have no experience with Haskell" The "just so you know" is communicated through the use of "hein" at the end. Example 4: "C'est de ma soeur, hein, pas de ma part" Translates to: "To be clear it's from my sister, not me" Here too, the "to be clear" is communicated through the use of "hein". Be aware: the interpretation is purely subjective and depends on the context, and mostly the tone, so it's not that clearly communicated via text! Also, my french is actually swiss-french. Hope that helps, and tell me if "huh" would communicate the same meanings :)
      • dgellow 6y ago
        Another one I'm thinking about now: Person 1: "C'est pas correct, laisse moi te montrer comment ça marche. Clique sur ce bouton, et ensuite sur celui-ci. Tu vois?" Person 2: "Heeeeeeein!" (very long one that kind of sound like a sin wave from high pitch to lower pitch) Translates to: Person 1: "That's not correct, let me show you how that works. Click on this button, then that one. All good?" Person 2: "Ooooooh, I see!"
      • elliekelly 6y ago
        Thanks! This is super helpful! This is the kind of “slang” (not really sure if that’s the right word) that’s really hard to learn from books and even from watching Netflix in French. I’ll have to try to pay attention to “hein” on TV shows I watch. I wonder if my brain has just been skipping right over the word. Thanks again!
        • dgellow 6y ago
          You're welcome :) In TV shows people often speak French in a more dramatic/theater-like way, it's likely that they remove some details like that. I face the same issue as I'm learning German, the way people speak in German movies is a sanitized version that sounds more like drama (theater) than real dialogs. If you listen to Twitch stream in French, or even some Youtube videos or some podcasts, or people on live TV (basically anything that isn't edited to cleanup the audio), I expect that you will find a lot of those interjections!
          • elliekelly 6y ago
            Twitch streams! Thats such a good idea and I definitely, will thanks :)