No results found for this search.
Only the first 1000 results are available. Please narrow your search.
Pour des prunes
Une prune is a plum - not to be confused with un pruneau, a prune. While this lovely fruit is fully appreciated for its nutrition properties nowadays, it has also long been associated with something of little or no value in French. If you do...
Continue readingÀ la queue leu leu
The poetry of those words! They are a favorite of preschoolers. But you will also hear them in the long lines of traffic that characterize French life during strike season - which invariably coincides with the holiday season. However, it is...
Continue readingUne image d'Epinal
When you’re told that you're providing une image d'Epinal - an Épinal print - it means you only show the good side of things, in a somewhat naive and reductive way. An image d'Épinal is equivalent to a rose-colored cliché, an idealized view, a...
Continue reading
Un coup de main
Every once in a while, you come across a vocabulary word with a lot of potential. The French word coup is one of them; it is used in a wide range of expressions that seem mostly unrelated to each other, and sometimes even contradictory.On its...
Continue reading
Être au bout du rouleau
"To be at the end of the roll" isn't a good place to be. Whether the roll is a paint roll (un...
Read more
Se la couler douce
Je me la coule douce is a lovely expression which we hope you can still use for a few more days...
Read morePédaler dans la choucroute
This is another (weird) expression directly related to the Tour de France - which ended on July...
Read moreLa lanterne rouge
Être la lanterne rouge - to be the red lantern - means to come last in a ranking, or list. The...
Read moreFaire la grasse matinée
What a luxury to pull a fluffy pillow over your ears while the birds break the silence of the...
Read moreUn Papa Gâteau
Here is a legitimate question to ask on Father's day: is Dad un Papa Gâteau?Literally translated...
Read moreLa fin des haricots
Literally translated as the end of the beans, la fin des haricots usually comes with a sigh and...
Read moreUn Violon D'Ingres
Un violon d'Ingres (silent s) is not to be confused with "un violon dingue" (a crazy violin) -...
Read moreMuet comme une carpe
Channel your inner fish and don't say a word. Muet comme une carpe - mute as a carp - is...
Read moreC'est un navet!
This phrase is something you wouldn't be surprised to hear at a farmer's market, since un...
Read moreÀ fleur de peau
Here is an elegant and visual expression that will impress any audience. Être à fleur de peau...
Read moreTenir la chandelle
Tenir la chandelle may sound like an easy task but it can leave you desperate for an escape...
Read moreChanter comme une casserole
Francophones seem particularly bothered by the clattering of saucepans and this has inspired a...
Read moreJeter l'eponge
Literally to throw the sponge, jeter l'éponge is the French equivalent of the English expression...
Read moreJouer l'Arlésienne
This expression is a unique French idiom that translates literally to playing the girl from...
Read moreDécouvrir le pot aux roses
This charming expression involves roses, presumably sitting in a planter - pot - which must have...
Read moreUn autre son de cloche
Literally, the expression translates into another (a different) bell sound. When you strike or...
Read moreRire comme une baleine
Perhaps you have heard of La Vache Qui Rit - The Laughing Cow? Well, move over Laughing Cow! ...
Read moreAvoir le coup de foudre (pour...)
Foudre means lightning, and un coup de foudre is a lightning bolt - useful vocabulary if you're...
Read morePlein comme un oeuf
Literally translated as, “full as an egg,” it is a colloquial simile applied to a thing or a...
Read more