To ask what your favourite French words and expressions are?

[WellAlwaysHaveParis]

Very random AIBU, but I’d be interested to find out: what are your favourite French words and expressions? :)

I’m restarting a weekly post on French expressions for my blog on French language and culture, and I’ve run out of inspiration

Shameless plug alert.... if you’d like to know more about the blog or if you or anyone you know might like to contribute to it, please let me know on here or via private message :)

and are all up for grabs as prizes for the best words

Meles toi de tes oignons. (Mind your own business)

"lèche-vitrine". Literally "licking the windows" for window shopping. Makes me smile every time I hear it !

Loved Del Boy's attempt when he needed an expletive.
Qu'elle fromage

Mi-foutre, Mi-eau de bidet!

Loofa beat me to it

And

L’espririt des escaliers

I love the word doucement, but not sure I've spelt it right!

etre dans la lune

Ça fait chier

Flute! (Instead of zut! Zut is not even rude so imagine how genteel it's replacement "flute" is)

Je m'en bats les couilles avec une pèle a tarte

On s'en fout

A '?' is called a 'qu'est que ce' in our house. I blame Muzzy from then FD was little.

All a bit Southern (Papa Spritz is from Marseille), but we liberally use ‘bouge de la’ & ‘depeche toi’ daily.

Tant pis.

So much more succinct than anything in English. Except 'meh' which isn't as classy!

Crepuscule for dusk/twilight - love the way this sounds.

A nice regional variation I like is ‘nonante’ and ‘septante’ for 90 and 70 respectively.

Placoplatre

Currently our favourite (plasterboard). Just nice to say, and bloody handy to know.

ca marche! (literally, it walks, but means 'it works' and used when for example you are struggling with some sort of machinery and it finally does what you want)

Lèche-vitrines is also one of my favourites, loofah!

On the other side of the fence, I was on a conference call with our French partners on Friday. One of the guys is always trying out English idioms, with varying degrees of success. He wrapped up the call with "We don't want to beat ze dead horse". I'm still giggling 🤭

"Tu chies des bulles" is my fave it translates as you poop bubbles but means "you're talking nonsense"

A trilingual friend recently told me of the lovely Italian ‘filler’ word ‘Allora’. Sorry,I know it’s not French but it’s so pretty and useful.

L'esprit de l'escalier- when you think of the witty remark that you should have said but didn't think of it until too late
C'est bonnet blanc et blanc bonnet. It's 6 of one and half a dozen of the other

Our French exchange student taught us 'on y go', which is apparently the cool thing to say among Lycee students these days.

DD 1 is living in southern France right now and has cultivated a fine disdainful 'Eh, putain!' In fact her French generally has developed a long way from the variety taught in schools....
My French colleague always starts her mails with 'coucou', which for some reason I find hugely irritating.

Bof

La vache!

Zarrbi

“Je m’en fechier”
Do you mean “je me fais chier”?

This phrase has always amuses me:
Il y du monde au balcon
Literal translation: it’s busy on the balcony / there are a lot of people on the balcony
Actual meaning: she’s got big tits

I’ve never actually heard a French person say it though (and I hang out with French people a lot) - I like to think they’re too polite to make a comment like that

Oh and I actually say “oh la la” and “oh la” when in French mode. I’m aware of how silly I probably sound

DH (French) is great at picking up English idioms but he often gets them ever so slightly wrong which is endearing 😍

'en y va qui en y vas'
used to get the kids out of the house - 'let's go if you're going' I think

"Les carottes sont cuites" and "il pleut des cordes". One so goofy, the other so fitting.

My DF always used to (purposefully) say on y va qui mal y pense.

I also liked bof! and genial! when learning French in the 1990s. I always assumed no real French people actually said those words.

I also occasionally say 'quelle barbe!' when something is a bit tiresome, which was a joke from my school French textbook when the dad was shaving - I think it means both 'what a bore/what a beard'.

Does l'esprit de l'escalier literally mean 'the spirit of the stairs'? I like that.

Thanks so much, everyone - these are great!! :) I love the ‘il y a du monde au balcon’ one, @AnotherEmma 😂 I was trying to translate it more or less literally before I read your explanation about what it actually means