Les Français décrivent la dernière photo sur leur téléphone

What does “un screen” mean in French?

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”).