October 21, 2003
à toutes jambes
(Literally: with all your legs)
Allez à toutes jambes!
Translation:
Let's go as fast as our legs will carry us!
What Is an Idiom?
What is an idiom? You can call something an idiom when you take the separate components and put them together to come up with a meaning that is totally unpredictable.
If you look at each word you can understand the meaning of them separately, but when you put it all together you come up with a completely different meaning than what was expected. When you cannot figure out the meaning of a phrase because the individual words don't add up to something you understand — then you have an idiom.
Languages are full of idioms and French is no exception. Learn to speak the French the way the French do. Visit here often this semester to look for the latest idiom posting.
A Pain in the Heart.
'Avoir mal au coeur' literally means 'to have pain in the heart', but it is the French way to say, 'to feel sick'. So, if you want to say 'I feel sick' in French, it would be 'J'ai mal au coeur."
Change the Record.
Change de disque! Literally, 'change the record'. It is the French way of saying 'Drop this subject,' or better yet, 'Give it a rest!'
*This is the first step toward THE One World Language.
Steps A & B: *The imperative is soothed by the interrogative.
Planète Française is ruled by Dr. Todd Alden Marshall, professor of Russian and Slavic Linguistics at the University of Central Arkansas. An independent entity in the CornDancer consortium of planets, Planète Française is dedicated to the study and exploration of the French language. CornDancer is a developmental website for the mind and spirit maintained by webmistress Freddie A. Bowles of the Planet Earth. Submissions are invited.
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