French Idioms

ConTheCat

Ils sont montés sur leurs grands chevaux- They got up on their high horses.
Cela m'enleve une épin du pied-This has taken a weight off my shoulders!
Tout va pour le mieux!-Things are looking up!
J'ai vendu la meche!-I let the cat out of the bag!
I use these in the journal intime, can be used for anything really

plein de force

Patchy~ wrote: »

je m’en fiche/fous!
(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!)

Je m'en fous translates as i dont give a **** so don't use it in the oral, but je m'en fiche is fine

Togepi wrote: »

@Patchy~ When we learned the subjunctive we were told the best way to form it is to take the stem from ils, but most books say use the nous form. I don't think voir is irregular, as far as I know it's just like boire.

It's always take the ils form and add the endings apart from of course the verbs where the subjunctive is irregular.


A good subjunctive to use is "C'est dommage que" it's a shame that

Canard

plein de force wrote: »

Je m'en fous translates as i dont give a **** so don't use it in the oral, but je m'en fiche is fine

Thanks for the warning Is it okay to say, if you were talking about the economy, 'nous sommes foutu'? I wrote it in my copy and my teacher just laughed, but I wanna make sure I'm not being too rude :P

plein de force

Patchy~ wrote: »

Thanks for the warning Is it okay to say, if you were talking about the economy, 'nous sommes foutu'? I wrote it in my copy and my teacher just laughed, but I wanna make sure I'm not being too rude :P

No don't use it in an oral, but je m'en fous and that is perfect stuff for a french convo with a friend

if you're talking about the economy you could say "Ce sera difficile de s'en sortir" a much nicer way of putting it

Dwellingdweller

How good do you have to be to get say, 90+ in the oral? If you make no glaring mistakes and talk at length about the questions you are asked, is it possible to achieve top marks? Or do ya have to use uncommon vocabulary/tense structures to get those top marks?

plein de force

Dwellingdweller wrote: »

How good do you have to be to get say, 90+ in the oral? If you make no glaring mistakes and talk at length about the questions you are asked, is it possible to achieve top marks? Or do ya have to use uncommon vocabulary/tense structures to get those top marks?

i didn't really use uncommon vocabulary and i didn't really get the chance to use more than one or two subjunctive phrases or intensely complicated grammar structures and i made a few mistakes and got an A1. i did have a complicated document, maybe that was it.
the most important thing to do is come across confident, pronounce things well and try the best on your accent.
plus if you make a mistake and you know you did and know how to correct yourself, do correct yourself, the examiner will be impressed you did. they don't expect you to be fluent and even when you are you still make mistakes.

Just be natural !

Dwellingdweller

plein de force wrote: »

i didn't really use uncommon vocabulary and i didn't really get the chance to use more than one or two subjunctive phrases or intensely complicated grammar structures and i made a few mistakes and got an A1. i did have a complicated document, maybe that was it.
the most important thing to do is come across confident, pronounce things well and try the best on your accent.
plus if you make a mistake and you know you did and know how to correct yourself, do correct yourself, the examiner will be impressed you did. they don't expect you to be fluent and even when you are you still make mistakes.

Just be natural !

Great stuff! I'm looking forward to it now! the only thing is I'm not very naturally confident but ah well, my l33t french skills will carry me through :pac:

Togepi

Can any of you tell me which of these is right?

1.) Il y a des hauts d'être l'aînée.
2.) Il y a des hauts d'étant l'aînée.

(Being the oldest has its advantages.)

I never know how to translate 'being' in these kinds of sentences.

(And I could probably use a better word for advantages in this case, but I'm not bothered about that for the moment!)

Namlub

D'etre
And advantages is just avantages anyway

Togepi

Namlub wrote: »

D'etre
And advantages is just avantages anyway

Merci. Yeah I thought that was it I was just too lazy to double check. :P

Manic2

SO. NERVOUS.

PictureFrame

Manic2 wrote: »

SO. NERVOUS.

Moi aussi! I'm up early to try and cram about the Economic Crisis in French, have to go over my Document again (Exam Pressure) ironic or what? -_-

I'm gonna try and do up a mind-map of what they might ask aswell, cram about Olympics, Holidays, Future, Weekend, TY. :P. I really wanna just do it at this stage

Killian In The Name Of

Manic2 wrote: »

SO. NERVOUS.

This.