Xavier pulled out two expressions this week that really got me - the second one made me laugh like crazy:
1. "On peut rentrer comme dans un moulin." (We can get in like going into a windmill). Xavier said this about the hospital when we were recently there for a birthing class. It is an idiomatic expression that means anyone can get in - no security, no restrictions.
2. " Je n'ai pas envie de poireauter comme ça." (I don't want to leek [stand around and wait] like this). For the life of me, I could not pick out the verb he had just used in his phrase when he said this, so I asked him to review. He looked at me like it was obvious, told me it was poireauter and when I still looked confused (I did not know this verb), he said, "You know, it comes from - poireau - the one who stands tall, is white and green and has white hair coming out the bottom." At this point, it still wasn't clear he was referring to a vegetable, but when I realized it I had to cross my legs not to pee from laughing. Apparently, leeks (poireau) have a clear relationship with waiting in French, which is not at all clear to me. Furthermore, the full idiomatic expression is "poireauter 107 ans" (to leek for 107 years) - the time it took to build Notre Dame. (Even stranger is the relationship between leeks and Notre Dame).
Also, leeks are not the only idiomatic vegetable reference in French. Carrots have their phrase too: carotter is to steal something from someone in French. Again, the relationship between carrots and stealing is flustering.
Others include:
"Je n'ai plus un radis" (I don't have a radish left) - I am totally broke.
"C'est la fin des haricots !" (I'm out of beans) - I'm in deep trouble.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
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7 comments:
I love all these sayings involving vegetables. Very healthy.
is this related to Hercule Poirot (same sound)....the BELGIAN detective?? who knew Agatha Christie had a sense of humor??
Hello Emilie! I just found your blog–and I can't even remember how–but I just loved this post and had to say hello!
I have a question for you: how good was your French when you met Xavier? And did you start speaking French together immediately? (I'm learning Croatian and am dating a Croat, but we're not so good at speaking Croatian together... shame on us.)
Hi Elaine, my French was school/university French. We met in 2006 (almost never spoke French), moved to Paris in 2007 and then started to speak some French - stayed until 2010 (during this time I actually learned French and spoken French) and now today flow easily between French and English. We often speak in our own languages to each other as well. It definitely took years for us to speak French together. We met in English in New York...
Your language journey is fascinating -- especially the part about now speaking in your own languages together. Cool!
Not a vegetable, but I always found use of the expletive "boeuf!" rather curious.
Very cool! Thanks for the response. It gives me hope and reminds me to relax a bit... language learning takes time!
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