Les expressions — Idioms

Idioms in French

French has a very large stock of expressions idiomatiques, many of them built on food, animals and the body: avoir d'autres chats à fouetter, mettre son grain de sel, se mettre le doigt dans l'œil, raconter des salades. Dictionaries of idioms are popular, and French people enjoy explaining where their idioms come from, though the stories are often uncertain. For a learner, the difficulty is less learning idioms than knowing which ones are in current use, by whom, and in what register. Idioms age: some, such as sapristi or c'est la fin des haricots, now sound old-fashioned or deliberately humorous; others are informal and belong to conversation rather than writing, like en avoir ras le bol. A sensible rule is to use idioms you have heard several times from people of your own generation and social circle, and to use them sparingly, as native speakers do. Grammatically, set phrases follow a few regular patterns. The verb conjugates, the possessive and the reflexive pronoun agree with the subject, fixed pronouns such as en and y stay in place, and idioms that exist only in the negative cannot be turned into the affirmative without becoming a joke.