Hello and welcome back!
I hope that all of you are safe, healthy, and adjusting to this new normal of being at home indefinitely. This is a great time to learn some new phrases in a foreign language, and that’s exactly what today’s blog is all about.
Below, I’ve listed some fun idioms in French and English. You can see the equivalences of French the idioms we often say in English.
Practice saying some of these sayings and if you’re feeling adventurous, slip some of them into your conversations with friends and family.
- Avoir une araignée au plafond (To have a spider in the ceiling) = To have bats in the belfry
- Un éléphant dans un magasin de porcelaine (An elephant in a porcelain shop) = A bull in a china shop
- Il tombe des cordes (It’s pouring) = It’s raining cats and dogs
- Voir trente-six chandelles (To see 36 candles) = To see stars
- Prendre quelqu’un la main dans le sac (To catch someone with their hand in the bag) = To catch somebody red-handed
- Quand les poules auront des dents (When chickens have teeth) = When pigs fly
- Ce ne sont pas mes oignons (Those aren’t my onions) = That’s not my pigeon
- Faire d’une pierre deux coups (To make two hits with one stone) = To kill two birds with one stone
- Mettre la charrue avant les boeufs (To put the plow before the oxen) = To put the cart before the horse
- Avoir le beurre et l’argent du beurre (To have the butter and the money for it) = To have your cake and eat it too
- Remuer ciel et terre (To move heaven and earth) = To leave no stone unturned
- Ne pas réveiller le chat qui dort (To not wake up the sleeping cat) = To let sleeping dogs lie
- Marcher sur des oeufs (To walk on eggs) = To skate on thin ice
- Se jeter dans la gueule du loup (To jump into the wolf’s mouth) = To put your head in the lion’s den
Which sayings do you like the most?
I find it really interesting to see how similar these common idioms are; even with language and cultural differences, the shared human experience is close enough that we share complementary idioms.
If you find yourself with some extra time during the next few weeks, look up these same idioms in other languages and see how they compare. Maybe they’ll be similar as well! This is a fun way to keep up your language learning so that you’re ready to travel in the future.
Happy Language Learning!
Shannon