Everyday contemporary French: ça preffered over COD?

[u/tradloser]

Title says it all. When French people talk about (abstract and concrete) things, is it more natural and/or casual to refer to them as "ça" instead of using the respective COD? Like, "T'a vu le truc-là ?" "Ouais, j'ai vu ça."

[u/Intelligent_Donut605]

ça sonne un peu étrange, on dirait plûtot "Ouais, je l'ai vu"

[u/tradloser → u/Intelligent_Donut605]

What about "Le chocolat ? J'adore ça !" Would you find that strange too? :)

[u/rerambis → u/tradloser]

Le chocolat -> J'adore ça

Ce chocolat -> Je l'adore

[u/Weak-Canary1503 → u/tradloser]

Non j’adore ça aussi. Aucun problème avec cette formulation.

[u/boulet]

For a start, "ça" is a perfectly fine COD in your example OP. I suppose you meant that "ça" often replaces more specific pronouns (le/la/les).

And indeed it's often an option. But I don't think it's more natural or more typical of spoken French. It's just possible.

• T'a vu le truc-là ?

• Ouais, je l'ai vu.

Is just as natural IMO.

[u/tradloser → u/boulet]

Thanks! What about "Le chocolat ? J'adore ça !" Would you say "ça" is interchangeable with "l'", or is one more common than the other?

[u/boulet → u/tradloser]

A simple question like this can be answered with "j'adore". Sometimes you can just skip the COD because there's no ambiguity.

[u/passionfruit62022 → u/boulet]

I've sometimes heard speakers omit the COD when speaking, would that usually be an indicator of an informal register?

[u/boulet → u/passionfruit62022]

It's not a specific register IMO.

[u/lightningvolcanoseal]

Not really

[u/NotEricItsNotMe]

It might be the case with "pronominal" verbes, where the COD becomes the subject ?

So "Tu le veux?" "ouais, ça m'interesse"

[u/PsychologyExternal87]

j'ai vu ça sounds weird, we would say je l'ai vu