Idioms & Expressions
We’re going to leave the very formal goodbyes here and dive into the familiar – or overfamiliar – ones.
Ciao… would be “Ciao”, “Tchao” (pronounced the same way as Ciao… all’italiana 😉
See ya… would be “À toute” or “À plus” (short for À toute à l’heure and À plus tard)
See ya later… would be “À plus” or “À plus tard !”
So long… would be “À la prochaine” (meaning see you next time)
I will not explain the situations when you should or should not use them… it’s about the same in French and English 😉
Idioms & Expressions
There are a few “new” words that appear in the language, once in a while. They usually come from the recent teenage standards of communication…. hijacked and given a new meaning… I spare you the body movements that go with…
An exemplary sample of those is “like” that we could translate by “genre” in French.
1/ Normal sentence: I walked into the shop and looked at all the cheap food on sale. There was so much there that I couldn’t choose.
2/ Normal translation in French: Je suis entré dans le magasin et ai regardé toute la nourriture bon marché en vente. Il y en avait tellement que je n’ai pas pu choisir.
3/ Like sentence: I like walked into the shop and like looked at all the like cheap food on sale. There was like so much there that I like couldn’t choose.
4/ Genre sentence in French: Je suis genre entré dans le magasin et j’ai genre regardé toute la nourriture genre bon marché en vente. Il y en avait genre tellement que j’ai genre pas pu choisir.
I doubt you would speak like that… but you WILL hear it, better be “like” ready 😉
The general meaning is “sort of” 🙂
Idioms & Expressions
Although I checked and learned that the English can make OR take a decision… the French don’t have a choice 😉
In fact, I don’t remember having heard an Anglophone “taking” decisions so far (but maybe I’ve no heard enough of them…)… they systematically seem to make decisions.
The francophone CANNOT make decisions… they only can TAKE them.
Prendre une décision… prendre des décisions.
Idioms & Expressions
We have two expressions made out of cake, almost the same as in English.
1) C’est du gâteau. Literally… it is some cake, your equivalent of It’s a piece of cake
2) La cerise sur le gâteau. Literally… the cherry on the cake, your equivalent of Icing on the cake.
You will probably find many French mentioning the cherry on the cake, don’t be surprised it’s their literal translation of the icing 😉
Idioms & Expressions
This is when foreign languages are fun and full of surprises !
Today, I picked 3 fun expressions in this category :
1) “Tomber dans les pommes” meaning “to faint.” Literally, though, it’s “to fall in the apples.”
2) “Raconter des salades” meaning to tell lies, with the implied meaning of talking bullshit (excuse my French 😉 ) OK, literally it says “ to tell salads.”
3) “C’est pas tes oignons !” meaning “it’s none of your business!” Literally, it means “it’s not your onions!”
Idioms & Expressions
This is a French expression which means to leave… but it’s a one way business !
You are asked to “prendre la porte” which would translate into “take the door” when you are – firmly – asked to leave the room.
You could also decide to “prendre la porte” when it is not just an ordinary calm exit but a rather tempestuous one… we could say “to storm out (the door)”
There is something theatrical in this type of exit !
