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French Idioms
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10-04-2012 8:47pm#1
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je m’en fiche/fous!Someone post in the thread I made, it's lonely
(it means i dont give a damn but i'm not sure if its more like 'i dont give a fu(k, might not be appropriate!)
À toute chose malheur est bon - every cloud has a silver lining
Autres temps, autres mœurs.
Times change.
“Other times, other customs.”
Un clou chasse l’autre.
Life goes on.
“One nail chases the other.”
Il faut casser le noyau pour avoir l’amande.
No pain no gain.
“You need to break the shell to have the almond.”
Il faut qu’une porte soit ouverte ou fermée.
There can be no middle course.
“A door must be open or closed.”
Impossible n’est pas français.
There is no such word as “can’t.”
“Impossible isn’t French.”
Les jours se suivent et ne se ressemblent pas.
There’s no telling what tomorrow will bring.
“The days follow each other and don’t look alike.”
Un malheur ne vient jamais seul.
When it rains, it pours!
“Misfortune never comes alone.”
Tant va la cruche à l’eau qu’à la fin elle se casse.
Enough is enough.
“So often the pitcher goes to the water that in the end it breaks.”
Qui vivra verra.
What will be will be. / Time will tell.
“He who lives will see.”
My teacher said she asked a French person and they're all okay - learned them the night before my mock and got an A1, so yeah, I think you'll be fine with these
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Oh yeah thats what I meant :P Subjunctive though...would it not maybe be qu'on voye? like, voyons, knock off the ons, add an e?There's no need for a que, you could say 'il faut qu'on voit la vie en rose' instead though.
I havent done the subjunctive yet sooooo yeah I'm probably wrong but still :P 0 -
Oh yeah thats what I meant :P Subjunctive though...would it not maybe be qu'on voye? like, voyons, knock off the ons, add an e? I havent done the subjunctive yet sooooo yeah I'm probably wrong but still :P
I'm not very good on my subjunctive of voir so I just left it as it was, but you take it from the ils part not the nous part anyway. 0 -
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Almost sure its the same stem anyway :PI'm not very good on my subjunctive of voir so I just left it as it was, but you take it from the ils part not the nous part anyway.
C'est la moins qu'on puisse dire - the least one can sayIt'd be 'qu'on voie' I think
'Je souhaite que je puisse y rétourner un jour' is one of the only full sentences with the subjunctive I know, have to fit it in somewhere
Some of my idioms have subjunctives too, and a really helpful person (presumably a teacher) posted a list of things that trigger the subjunctive always, really handy to know! Il faut que is probably the best, and you can always put a ne in too, just to show you know the ne expletif...even if you dont. :cool:0 -
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Coeurdepirate wrote: »I could be mistaken, but shouldn't it be "il faut qu'on voie la vie en rose" ?
Ah, yeah you're right. (I think I've been corrected a couple of times now!) :P I don't know the subjunctive of voir very well at all, so I just left it in the present. At least it sounds the same for the orals anyway.
Another idiom I found today - en voir de dures - to have it rough. eg. 'Nous en avons vu de dures quand ma mère était au chômage.'0 -
I have a few nice subjunctive phrases at the ready for next week.
Tip: Just use 'bien que je sois' (although I am - eg. hard-working, clever, etc.) and put whatever you want after it for a nice easy subjunctive.
Loving that one That, along with 'Il faut que' is going to make up basically all of my use of the subjunctive in the oral haha 0 -
dont forget avant que! maybe even 'il faut que j'aie les points pour mon cours avant que je sois heureux' :P
dunno if j'aie is right coz yeah, we havent done it yet :rolleyes: is voir irregular for subjunctive or do i just have the wrong conjugation rules? I thought it was take nous, remove ons and add endings
I'd check but we dont use a book... :pac:0 -
Dwellingdweller wrote: »Loving that one That, along with 'Il faut que' is going to make up basically all of my use of the subjunctive in the oral haha
Same, those two are life-savers! You can even throw in a sneaky 'il est nécessaire que' if you're afraid you'll overuse 'il faut que'. 0 -
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dont forget avant que! maybe even 'il faut que j'aie les points pour mon cours avant que je sois heureux' :P
dunno if j'aie is right coz yeah, we havent done it yet :rolleyes: is voir irregular for subjunctive or do i just have the wrong conjugation rules? I thought it was take nous, remove ons and add endings
I'd check but we dont use a book... :pac:
J'aie is right Couldn't ya just say 'il me faut avoir les points pour mon cours avant que je sois heureux'? Simplify it down to just one part of a subjunctive and reduce the chances of f**king it up haha. I've the subjunctive endings of voir here, it's basically regular except ye change the 'y' to an 'i'.
-je voie
-tu voies
-il voie
-nous voyions
-vous voyiez
-ils voient0 -
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Dwellingdweller wrote: »Handy Thingy though, why is 'il faut que je etc' subjunctive but 'il me faut etc' isn't? Confusing stuff!
I've no idea. I'd never considered using falloir like that. :eek:0 -
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Yeah dudes It's unreal confusing the first time you read it 'cos you're just like 'It's.. me... required?' But eventually it gets really easy, and it's really easy to say too because the words are so short! It's nice and easy in the past and future too. 'Il m'a fallu' and 'Il me faudrai' Bingo maybe yese'll find it useful in the oral!
Does anyone know if phrases like 'Ce soir la', 'Ce jour la', 'Ce semaine la' make sense? I think they roughly mean 'On that night', 'On that day' etc. They'd be really handy 'cos you could throw them in to your sentences to dress them up a wee bit. Par example, 'Ce soir la, j'avais deja allé a la supermarché deux fois pour acheter du vin et donc j'ai voulu rester a la maison.' Yis should check this thing out, it's pretty handy. La plupart des verbes et des mots en sont tres informal, peut-etre un petit peu trop informal pour l'epreuve orale, mais ils peuvent etre utile encore. J'ai trouvé un bonne verbe la: Bicher! On l'utilise pour dire que l'on est heureux avec soi-meme. Par example, "J'ai biché car j'ai gagné six cent points en ma Leaving Certificate." 0 -
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Just so ye know, my teacher says that the plus-que-parfait tense sounds even more impressive than the subjunctive because it's a lot more difficult to form and very very rarely used in orals! So I think ye should also try to fit a few of those in. I did in my mock when talking about my document and when I was finished the examiner said it was a really good idea to throw it in
Oh, and one idiom I always say to describe someone is "il/elle a un caractere de cochon"!0 -
I've never heard of this tense :S. Would you be able to give us a simple example?Just so ye know, my teacher says that the plus-que-parfait tense sounds even more impressive than the subjunctive because it's a lot more difficult to form and very very rarely used in orals! So I think ye should also try to fit a few of those in. I did in my mock when talking about my document and when I was finished the examiner said it was a really good idea to throw it in
Oh, and one idiom I always say to describe someone is "il/elle a un caractere de cochon"!0 -
Its simple really, PF - I have no accents on my keyboard btw but it should make sense.
Like this:
Je suis arrive a l'ecole quand j'ai realise* que j'avais oublie mon cahier (the plus-que-parfait bit is the I HAD forgotten, its to indicate something in the past tense further back than the rest of it)
*I know the correct verb is rendre compte or something, but I forgot if its reflexive so yeah :pac:
Its the equivalent of 'i had done' in english and is translated the exact same way, simples only thing is etre verbs are still etre verbs, so for i had gone you'd say 'j'etais alle' 0 -
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What Patchy~ said.
It's actually really simple. You just take a verb in the past tense:
J'ai donné - I gave
Then you change the auxiliary verb (avoir or être) to the imperfect tense. Easy!
J'avais donné - I had given
And if you want to make it even more impressive (we're getting ahead of ourselves today lads), you could add a 'si' clause to the start of it e.g "Si j'avais rangé la maison, ma mere serais content." (If I had, it would be) 0 -
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