French Idioms

Learn the answer to the question "What are some popular French idioms?"

Also Appears In: Mastering French: Level 2 Absolute Beginner Questions Answered by Candice

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Lesson Transcript

Hi everybody! Welcome to Ask a Teacher, where I'll answer your most common French questions.

The question for this lesson is-- What are some popular French idioms?

In English, we have our fair share of idioms, like, “It’s raining cats and dogs!” or even, “What’s up?” Here are the Top 10 French idioms you should know.

First up is Faire la tête means "to sulk" and its literal translation is "to do the head." It’s used when someone isn’t happy about something and in a bad mood. For example, Elle a fait la tête toute la journée. "She sulked all day."

You might have come across this one if you’ve seen any rom-coms in French. Coup de foudre literally means “a strike of lightning,” but as an idiom, it means, “love at first sight.” Pretty fitting, actually.

ça marche, is one you’ll come across every day. Marcher means “to walk,” but ça marche means, “that works!”

one that doesn’t make much sense, but you’ll often hear is, Il fait un temps de chien, literally, “It’s a dog weather,” meaning, “It’s terrible weather.”

Next one is a little funny. Arriver comme un cheveu sur la soupe literally means, “to arrive like a hair in the soup.” This is about entering a situation at the worst possible moment. Say you walked in on a terrible argument and it was really awkward, you could say, Je suis arrivé comme un cheveu sur la soupe. Literally, “I arrived like a hair in the soup.” It can also mean, “arriving suddenly, by chance.”

Another idiom that uses food is mettre son grain de sel, literally, “to put one’s grain of salt.” It’s an idiom that means, “to give an unnecessary opinion.”

Next is Donner sa langue au chat. It literally means "To give one's tongue to the cat," but it actually means, "To give up." For example if someone asks you to guess something and you have no idea what the answer is, you can say Je donne ma langue au chat. “I give up.”

Next one is faire la grasse matinée, which literally means, “to do a fat morning,” but people use it to say they slept in.

Ça coûte les yeux de la tête, which means, “It’s ridiculously expensive,” but literally means, “It costs the eyes out of the head!”