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Clair, are you paying attention? Useful expressions!


mint
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D'abord, apologies to Clair.  Of course, this thread isn't meant JUST for Clair, no more than the thread "Norman, are you listening?" meant just for Norman.

I thought I'd start a thread with "useful expressions" as I am continually coming up against French expressions that obviously have meanings for my French friends and neighbours but mean next to nothing to me.

My first expression is:  j'en ai pour (time).  So, I said to the notaire yesterday afternoon, "J'en ai pour dix minutes" and he reassured me that that was no problem.

I understand this phrase to mean, it will only take 10 minutes or I only need 10 minutes of your time.

Does anyone else use this expression and have I got its sense correct?

There, never say that there is nothing new on the Forum and that everyone has left![:P]

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Oh!

I think it could have meant that he would be with you, but what he was doing would only take ten minutes??

Depends on the whole conversation I suppose.[blink]

Mind you that could be ages whatever the context as 'un instant' can take a very long time!

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Yes you are right (both) about "en avoir pour........minutes/hours/days".

Yesterday someone asked me about the expression "avoir beau (faire quelque chose)" - he thought it was the same as "même si" - not quite, though.

For instance, if you say: "J'ai beau me lever tôt le matin, je n'arrive jamais à tout faire"

So it is "even though". It's a strange expression, I had never thought about it like this.

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I'm currently trying to make an effort to disentangle the multitude of uses to which the expression "A priori" seems to be put in French, and, more importantly, why!

It seems to mean anything from "in the first place" to "in principle" to the normal, quasi-legal use as I understand it in English. But why?

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And here's another expression that could confuse English speakers; à rigueur 

It's not like de rigueur familier to us as in "it's the done thing" or "comme il faut".

Nothing like so straightforward.  I think it equates to something like "at a push" or, in French, à la limite.

For example, you don't want to do something but you agree à rigueur but, it's the most I am prepared to go.  That's to say, so far and no further.

So, French contributors, have I got the sense right?

Anglophone contributors, please help to keep this thread going or we will lose it and we stand to gain so much by learning some of these (to us) obtuse expressions!

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The word I place a very heavy reliance on is hélas  -  especially to begin phrases.

Dictionaries may deprecate it as 'literary or humorous', but it has this great advantage:  used early enough in a sentence  -  however badly expressed  -  it gives the gesticulating interlocutor a clear impression that the answer is going to boil down to NO.

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I think Betty is right... à la rigeur

I would add another word that since I became aware of its apparent incongruity to English eyes I have noticed more and more

Confronter/confrontation..

It often seems to have a gentler sense in French than in English

confronter can be used to mean 'compare with' or to 'be taken into account alongside' as in

 à confronter avec les résultats de la prise de sang (to be looked at together with the blood test results)

and une confrontation means  bringing two people together to compare their versions of the facts (often used as a technique by the Police where the victim/accuser is brought face to face with the alleged perpetrator )

so might be said to be a 'face to face'

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Gengulphus, how can I ever fail now (after your excellent explanation) to forget to begin sentences with "hélas" in order to signal my intention right at the outset?[:D]  Nice linguistic device and I will try it out very soon, to gauge its effects!

Betty, and Norman, thanks for à la rigueur; I don't think that I always listen as carefully as I might.

Confronter is useful to know though I can't say that I have paid it much attention.

The one I really like is cohabitation in the political sense.  For example, a right- and a left-wing politician working together to achieve results. I suppose that, in English, we do say, oh, don't they make very odd bedfellows?

It's one of the rare senses in which getting into bed with someone else doesn't necessarily lead to anything to do with sex?

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[quote user="sweet 17"]

The one I really like is cohabitation in the political sense.  For example, a right- and a left-wing politician working together to achieve results. I suppose that, in English, we do say, oh, don't they make very odd bedfellows?

It's one of the rare senses in which getting into bed with someone else doesn't necessarily lead to anything to do with sex?

[/quote] Can we be sure of that given some of our present day politicians[:D]
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Hey Norman!

There was an exhibition at the Historial museam at Peronne on the relationship between the soldiers animals during WW1.

If that wasnt funny enough the English translation talked of the promiscuity between the soldiers and the animals in the trenches[:-))]

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[quote user="sweet 17"]Nice linguistic device and I will try it out very soon, to gauge its effects![/quote]

Well, I think that hélas is certainly worth a go.

I think we spend too much of our lives unable to say 'No';  but when one has finally learned this vital skill, it is worth doing with a bit of a flourish, if only to indicate enjoyment.

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I suppose it's vaguely along the same lines, but it's always made me grin that smoking may be harmful to one's "entourage". Somehow, it leaves me with an impression of the Rat Pack, or 1950's movie stars and their hangers-on. The idea that Joe Public has an entourage seems a bit strange.

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[quote user="NormanH"]You might also like 'promiscuité' living in overcrowded conditions, one on top of the other [:-))]
[/quote]

ha, ha, yes, I do like that [:D]

However, not much chance of that where I live:  the population density is something like 25 inhabitants per km2

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I heard a new-to-me expression this autumn in France, it sounded like "c'est marron", and I couldn't tell whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. My English friend who is a permanent resident in France had never heard it, the only marron she knew was a chestnut. We were in a local restaurant at the time, so I asked the proprietress what it meant. She was puzzled and said it was a colour. Eventually she worked out that the expression was"c'est marrant" meaning "it's funny."

Looks like I need to pay attention to what I'm hearing in the French language.

I like "c'est rigolo" for funny too.

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It seems to have been and gone a bit, but a few years ago, everything was "nickel". I haven't heard it as much recently, but it seemed to be used for everything.

- your swimming pool is now crystal clear after being a bit cloudy:  nickel

- you arrived at your holiday destination and everything was perfect: nickel

- something went a bit wrong but now it's fine: nickel

- you fixed something that was broken and now it's as good as new: nickel

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Clearly, Betty, you haven't seen my advert to sell our house in Charente Maritime where I said the house was "nickel".

And, you know what, the people who came to view on Saturday used exactly the very same word!

Hélas (as Gengulphus might say [:D]), they decided against because the neighbour's gamin decided, during the course of the visit, that he would get out his quad bike and ride it around our plot [:'(]  So "during" in the sentence above would be....pendant ?  (durée finie) Thought I'd throw that in to keep on topic [:)]

I think he was put up to it by his father.  We have been out of there for 3 years and they have now clearly been used to having all of the use of our land and are trying their best to put all potential purchasers off.

But, that's another story for another day and I am trying not to get too side-tracked and go right off topic.

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