#french expression

[ladylowrely]

Passer du coq à l'âne.

quick doodle of a mythical interpretation of the french expression which means juggling between subjects. I had a lovely one hour chat with a hatter yesterday where we talked about pretty much anything while I tried a few beret and caps.

[justdreamsandmusic]

1 ; Eponna Meridiana Wojciechowski

2 ; Meridiane Eponine Wojciechowski

3 ; Altros Hercs Clef once Francis Gallo Wojciechowski

[logogreffe]

What does "être à cheval sur " mean in French ?

Lit. translation : "to be on horseb-..." *confused French noise* "to be on a horse... on ..." ????

"Être à cheval sur quelque chose" = To take something really seriously / To be a perfectionnist when it comes to something

This expression is mostly used with the words "Principes" (Principles) and "Réglement" (Rules) :

- Someone who is "très à cheval sur les principes" is someone that is unlikely to compromise.

- "Être à cheval sur le règlement" // To be a perfectionnist when it comes to the rules.

It can also be used to describe someone that does NOT take something really seriously.

-> Le nouveau directeur est très apprécié des élèves. En effet, il n'est pas très à cheval sur le règlement et autorise les élèves à utiliser leur portable entre les cours. // The new director is very popular with the students. Indeed, he is not very regarding when it comes to the rules and allows students to use their cell phones between classes.

[naoko-world]

As a last post for the Encanto Milk day: some french expressions with milk!

Inspired by @lunaencantada's post!

vache à lait (Cow of Milk): something or someone you get profit of so you exploit it until it doesn't worth anything anymore. Also "Traire la vache à lait" (milk the cow of milk) to talk about the action to exploit the someone or something.

Soupe au lait (milk soup) : Easily upset or angry.

Dents de lait (teeth of milk): It is how we call one's first teeth, the ones La petite souris/Ratoncito Pérez/The tooth fairy comes to fetch when them fall.

Boire du petit lait (Drink some little milk): Feeling extremely satisfied with a situation.

Avoir un teint de lait (having a milk complexion): having a really white skin.

Also know that I chose Pepa because she's the most white character I could find in this movie.

Avoir du lait sur le feu (I have some milk on the fire): basically "I have something urgent to take care of".

That's all people! Hope you learned some things!

[inkysnapyarty]

« Faire le pet »

Signification : Guetter un danger.

Origine

L'expression est apparue au début du XIXe siècle et n'est pas une référence à des gaz intestinaux, mais une abréviation de pétard. Quand on fait le pet, on vérifie qu'il n'y a pas de danger et que l'alerte n'a pas à être donnée.

Voilà. Il fallait que je sache. AA emploie cette expression tous les 4 épisodes et je savais pas ce que ça signifiait réellement! 🤷🏼‍♀️

[dolcesostenuto]

à l’eau de rose

French expression meaning “rosewater flavoured”. It usually means exaggeratedly mild, slushy, syrupy, sentimental and romantic (generally speaking of a work such as a book or film).

[passigentilcoquelicot]

Rapetassage de tee-shirt troué.

(Si des profs de français passent par là, dites-moi si le verbe rapetasser existe où si c'est uniquement du vocabulaire de ma grand-mère. Merci)

[frenchly-anxious]

In France, my parent’s generation have this sentence that they use each time something feels like a big lie to keep up appearances:

“Non, le nuage s’est arrêté à la frontière.”

= No, the cloud stopped at the frontier.

It comes from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. After the reactor explosion, the population was afraid of the radioactive cloud that could arrive in France.

In the confusion and lack of information, the French government kept saying that “there is no danger, the radioactive levels are not alarming in France”. Which was relatively true, but we know now that some regions in France were more impacted than others. There was a famous weather announcement stating the cloud would be stopped by an anticyclone stuck above France. At the time, it was kinda true, but very quickly, the weather changed and the controversy grew.

If the actual sentence was never officially pronunced by anyone, the idea was massively spread - ironically or not - by journalists at the time: no, thanks to that anticyclone, the cloud stopped at the frontier.

France is not known for believing in conspiracy theories. But the “Chernobyl’s lie” is the closest we have of a conspiracy.

.

I feel like my generation sadly found their own “cloud”:

“Porter des masques est inutile”

= Wearing masks is useless.

That was what we were told repeatedly during the last 2 months. Now, the government is taking back that statement and telling us it might become mandatory, encouraging us to create them ourselves.

And well, we all know by now that the first statement was not really about a scientific truth, but more because it was not possible for everyone to get a mask. There already wasn’t enough for the medical staff, so telling the population it could help? It would have been war. And I do agree it was maybe the best thing to do, rather than let people panic and let them stock up on mask just like they did with toilet paper.

The thing is, maybe it denied the real danger of it all. Maybe it made us less carefull. “Oh, it’s not that bad, we don’t need masks.” Or not. Because we’ve been telling people quite intensely not to go outside and well, a lot don’t really seem to care.

We’ll see.