[Originally posted on 06/18/14 on the Duolingo French for English speakers forum by aaditsingh8]
Hey everyone!
Here are some French idioms and popular expressions-
À la vôtre! (ah lah voh-truh!)(Cheers!)
À mon avis. (ah mohN-nah-vee)(In my opinion)
À tes/vos souhaits. (ah tey/vos sweh!)(Bless you!)
Allez! Un petit effort! (ah-ley! uhN pu-tee-teh-fohr!)(Come on! Try a little!)
Bien sûr. (byaN sewr)(Of course)
Bon appétit! (bohN-nah-pey-tee!)(Enjoy your meal or Bon appetite!)
Ça vaut la peine/le coup. (sah voh lah pehn/luh kooh)(It’s worth it!)
D’accord. (dah-kohr)(Okay!)
De rien. (duh ryaN)(Welcome! -response to thank you)
Jamais de la vie! (zhah-meh duh lah vee!) or Pas question! (pah kehs-tyohN!) (No way!)
Revenons à nos moutons. (ruh-vuh-nohN ah noh mooh-tohN)(Let’s get back to the subject at hand)
Tant mieux. (tahN myuh)(So much the better)
Tant pis. (tahN pee)(Too bad)
Tout à fait. (tooh-tah feh)(Quite)
Un coup d’oeil. (uhN kooh duhy)(A glance, a quick look)
Edit: Faire tourner la tête (fehr toohr-nehr lah teht)(to blow someone’s mind)
Thanks WitchofTime for the phrase!
Edit: C’est la vie (seh lah vee)(That’s life)
Coup de grace (koo duh grahs)(Deadly blow)
Coup d’état (koo deh-taa)(Taking over a state/country forcibly)
Mon cheri (mohn shehri)(My dear)
Faux pas (fauh pah)(a socially awkward or tactless act, especially one that violates accepted social norms)
Oh là là (oh lah lah)(oh dear, oh my, oh no)
Au contraire (oh kohN-trehr)(On the contrary)
Carpe Diem (kahrp dyem)(Seize the day)
Comme ci comme ça (kohhm si kohhm sa)(Like this like that, so so)
Thanks a lot Dessamator for those expressions!!
Selected comments on original post
Merci beaucoup! Recordaré esto para el futuro (Veo que hablas español, y no quiero escribir inglés. 🙂
Merci beaucoup! J’aime apprendre des idiomes, parce que ces sont très utile. Je essaie mémoriser les phrases, car “Ça vaut la peine” 😉 Je souhaite que mon français n’est pas très mauvais. Salutation Tom.
That’s the correct use of “de rien” (you’re welcome). In your post, you translate it “don’t mention it!”, that’s wrong.
aaditsingh8 [contributor]
According to what i know, “don’t mention it” and “you’re welcome” are the same but people generally use “you’re welcome” or “welcome”. But I’ll change it, thanks!
I concur with you!
“Don’t mention it” = “It’s nothing!” = “de rien!” All in response to, “thank you.” …Right?
Thanks for these, knowing stuff like this is very useful.
“Revenons à nos moutons”? Let’s go back to our sheep?
aaditsingh8 [contributor]
Word to word translations of these phrases would be really weird! They’re kind of catch phrases.
The French would think the same thing for English expressions translated literally! That applies to every pair or languages.
By the way aaditsingh8 (I’m not sure how to tag people…), I don’t know how to do accents on my computer (and I forgot that online french keyboards exist), so when I typed “Faire tourner la tête”, I omitted the accent circonflexe over the word tête, so you should edit that. Thanks for making this list, it’s really helpful!
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