Bref, je suis nigériane !

Logo of French television series called Bref.

One of my favorite French expression is the word bref. As a French student in Nigeria, I used bref only as an adjective {bref (masculine) and brève (feminine)} which means brief or short.

Ex : 

Il préfère les discours brefs - He prefers short speeches
Sa lettre était brève - His letter was short
Soyez brève - be brief / keep it short
Je vous apporterai les documents dans les plus brefs délais - I will bring the documents as soon as possible

Moving to France, I discovered the word bref as an adverbe. I fell inlve with the way the French used it while talking. During my professional course to become a secretary, I used to listen to my friends racontent leur week-end... that is, what happened during their weekend and I used to love it when they get to the part when they say bref, c'était...

When the French raconte une histoire and want to end the story, they often round it up it with bref...

It can be :

Bref, c’était genial !
Bref, c'était un week-end de merde !
Bref, j'étais très fatiguée que je n'ai pas pu étudier !

When two people are arguing, one might get upset and decide to end the conversation.

Ex :

Bref, on arrête la !

They also use it to change the subject and move on to something else...

Ex :

Bref, parlons d’autre chose !

I like it more when they add enfin before the bref, seems like repetition to me but it's proper French to use the two together, Efin bref is an adverb which simple means anyways.

Ex :

Enfin bref, on a essayé de gagner du temps mais on a échoué !
Anyways, we tried to save  to save time but we failed !

Enfin bref, je n'ai pas envie d'y aller à cette fête !
Well, basically, I don't feel like going to this party !

Bref as an adverbe means :

• in short 
• in brief
• anyways
• in a nutshell,
• to cut the long story short 
• to sum up in a few words, 
• to sumarise it all, etc.

Ex :

Bref, ça ne sert a rien
In short, it serves no purpose

Bref, fais ce que u veux
In short, do what you want

Bref, ça s'est bien terminé.    
To cut a long story short, it turned out all right in the end.

Bref, ce n'est pas possible
Anyway, it's not possible

Bref, je ne veux pas ton arget
Anyway, I don't want your money

Bref, ce gouvernement est nul
In a nutshell, this gourvenment is useless

En bref ! exist also but it is rarely used. Everyone removes the en and use only the bref.

Ex :

En bref, soyons toujours ouvert et honnête
In summary, we should always be open and honest

There's a popular French page on Facebook called bref, je suis célibataire.

There is also a French television series called Bref. which is centered on the life of an anonymous 30-year old Parisian who is unemployed and single. His name was never revealed through-out the 40 episode series as he refers to himself only as "Je".

The titles of the the 40 episodes start with bref. Find some of them below :

• Bref. J'ai passé un entretien d'embauche.
• Bref. J'ai vu un psy.
• Bref. Je suis comme tout le monde.
• Bref. J'ai eu un job.
• Bref. Mes parents divorcent.
• Bref. J'ai couché avec une flic.
• Bref. J'ai recouché avec mon ex.
• Bref. Je sais pas dire non.
• Bref. J'ai couché avec Émilie.
• Bref. J'ai déménagé.
• Bref. J'ai un nouvel apart'.
• Bref. Je suis allé aux urgences.
• Bref. Je me suis fait agresser.
• Bref. J'ai eu 30 ans.
• Bref. Je suis en couple.
• Bref. J'ai un nouveau pote.
• Bref. Mon frère est gay.
• Bref. Je suis en mode survie.
• Bref. J'ai fait une dépression.

I use this expression a lot these days, especially when my husband asks me if I worked-out and I give a thousand and one reasons why I couldn't, I always end it with. Bref, je n'ai pas eu le temps or bref, j'étais fatiguée. 

Watch some bref videos on YouTube :

Bref. J'suis allé à Limoges

Bref, je crois que je suis raciste !!!

Bref, after all that has been said, I guess you know how to use this French word now :)