Selection of Important Idiomatic Expressions
Quiz yourself by thinking what should be in
each of the black spaces below before clicking
on it to display the answer.
Help!
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| le revers de la médaille | the other side of the coin
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| Ça fait râler... Ça me fait râler... | When something makes you very angry...
That makes me angry...
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| Un rire jaune | a false smile (jaune is the color of treachery in Franch)
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| un jaune | a strikebreaker or a coward
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| faire le poireau | to be left to wait around (leeks remain in the ground longer than most vegetables)
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| Je ne sais plus où donner de la tête | I am really confused.
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| donner sa langue au chat | to give up
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| les cheveux en bataille | dishevelled hair
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| le train-train | the routine, regular routine without any unexpected event
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| C'est me bête noire. | I just cannot stand it (used when you want to emphatically make a point against someone or something).
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| avoir le trac | to have stage fright
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| a gogo | a lot of
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| un violon d'Ingres | a hobby (Ingres was a famous painter who played violin in his spare time.)
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| n'avoir ni queue ni tête | to make no sense (used when find it difficult to understand or believe a story)
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| de bon coeur | willingly (used to show good faith)
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| rester bouche bée | to be surprised (used to show extreme shock)
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| être rasoir | to be a bore (shaving is a repetitive task)
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| en somme | all in all (used after one has considered all there is to conclude a statement)
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| payer les pots cassés | to pay for the damage
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| comme le jour et la nuit | as different as night and day
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| tiré à quatre épingles | well dressed (held by four pins. During Renaissance, pins were an item of luxury)
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| la brebis galeuse | the black sheep (the mangy sheep)
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| être sans le sou | to be penniless (used to emphasize destitution)
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| avoir du toupet | to have nerve (used to criticize an insensitive person)
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| en faire à sa tête | to do as one wishes, act according to his or her own mind
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| appeler un chat un chat | to call a spade a spade
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| avoir de pain sur la plance | to have more than one thing to do (in rural France, farmers used to store large quantities of bread on a board)
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| un canard | a tabloid (canard was often untrue piece of news, now refers to magazine or newspapers that print such news)
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| C'est kif-kif. | It makes no difference. It's my pleasure either way. (kif-kif is Arabic meaning pleasure.)
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| être aux anges | to be very happy (to be with angels, to be in 7th heaven)
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| être bête comme ses pieds | to be very stupid, describes a brainless person (feet cannot think)
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| de nos jours | nowadays
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| un temps de chien | very bad weather (expressions with "de chien" have a negative connotation)
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| perdre le nord | to lose control (lost when cannot locate North)
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| rendre compte |
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| Cela vaut la peine | It's worth it, It's worth the hardship
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| être au point-mort | to be at a standstill (point of death is the neutral gear)
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| passer une nuit blanche | to spend a sleepless night (night empty of sheep)
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| avoir le cafard | to feel depressed (cafard = cockroach)
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| Sa mémoire est une vraie passoire. | He or she has a memory like a sieve. (passoire = sieve)
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| avoir des doigts de fées | to have nimble fingers (to have the fingers of the faerie) (someone who can use their fingers to do wonderful things)
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| faire courir un bruit | to spread a rumor
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| C'est son rayon. | That's his or her specialty. (Rayon is a department in a large store).
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| un coup de foudre | love at first sight (la foudre = thunderbolt)
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Created by:
kles
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