A language sticks when you’re doing something with it

French sessions in Nice, starting soon

A handful of people, one afternoon, and French as the only language in the room while you cook, taste or play chess. The first sessions are still being set up.

Idioms are where a language gets curious. It’s fun to find out what people have in their throat when their voice goes: the French have a cat, while English and German speakers have a frog. When it’s freezing, the French call it a duck cold, the Italians a dog cold and the Germans a sow cold. Stand outside on a winter morning thinking about that duck and you won’t forget canard.

If you’re just starting, that’s vocabulary that sticks without flashcards, and some grammar comes along for free. If you already speak the language well, idioms are where you hear the difference between someone who learned it from books and someone who’s at home in it and likes to play with it.

All idioms, side by side The blog

For when you know exactly what you mean
and can’t find the French for it.

  1. Il ne faut pas pousser mémé dans les orties lit. ‘don’t push granny into the nettles’ Don't push it, that's going too far
  2. Avoir une araignée au plafond lit. ‘have a spider on the ceiling’ Someone is a bit crazy, or is acting as if they've lost their mind
  3. Quand les poules auront des dents lit. ‘when hens have teeth’ It will never happen
  4. Courir sur le haricot lit. ‘run on someone’s bean’ To annoy or irritate someone
  5. En faire tout un fromage lit. ‘make a whole cheese of it’ To treat a small problem as if it were a big one
  6. Avoir la gueule de bois lit. ‘have a wooden mouth’ To feel ill the morning after drinking too much alcohol

All French idioms, A to Z

Stories about learning by doing

  1. Who learns languages more easily, children or adults?

    Everyone says children pick up languages faster. I think adults have the better tools. Children just have no choice, and that part works for adults too.

  2. The cow exploded

    Growing up near Ramstein, early DVDs from the American base, and a friend who learned his English from movies and video games.

  3. Oh my, Apfelkuchen!

    The second Language by Doing session in Berlin, where people who'd never made one baked a sheet of grandmother-style apple cake.

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