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FRENCH WORD OF THE DAY

French expression of the day: Avoir la pêche

If someone tells you they're having 'la pêche', it doesn't mean they're keen for a fruity snack.

Published: 4 December 2019 15:02 CET

French expression of the day: Avoir la pêche

What is avoir la pêche?

Avoir la pêche can be directly translated into 'to have the peach'.

However, if you hear someone exclaiming j'ai la pêche! ('I have the peach!), it does not mean they were participating in some sort of game where the person catching the peach is the winner.

What does it mean?

In fact, j'ai la pêche means that the person is feeling great – probably alluding to those peachy, rosy cheeks, a sign that a person is healthy.

It's the opposite of being crevé – tired/exhausted.

Avoir la pêche is about feeling good mentally as well as physically. People often use it on a Friday evening to say that they are ready for the weekend.

For example:

C'est bientot le week-end, tu as la pêche ? – It's almost the weekend, are you stoked?

Je sentais déjà avant le match que j'avais la pêche, et lorsqu’on a commencé à jouer je me sentais en pleine forme – Even before the game I felt really good, and when we started playing I was feeling in great shape

Dis-donc, tu as la pêche ce matin! – Well, you certainly are in high spirits this morning!

Elle a toujours la pêche lorsqu'ils mettent Beyoncé – She's always in a great mood when they put on Beyoncé.

Inversely, you can use avoir la pêche in a negative form to say that someone isn't looking too peachy:

Je n'ai pas trop la pêche – I don't feel too great

Any other options?

There are several other similar ways to say you feel good, and they all include fruit or veg (the French seem to be crazy about their five a day):

Avoir la patate – to have a potato (read more about this expression here)

Avoir la frite – to have a chip

Avoir la banane – to have a banana.

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French word of the Day: Jours ouvrés

Why do I need to know jours ouvrés?

Because you need an accurate time estimate.

What does it mean?

As most French learners will know, jours means days, while in this context ouvrés means ‘working’. Therefore jours ouvrés – roughly pronounced jzoor-ouv-ray – means ‘working days’. You may also see jours ouvrables, which means the same thing.

You’re most likely to come across this in the context of estimates on how long things will take – for example a delivery or the processing of an official task or perhaps the results for a test or exam.

And this is where the calendar comes in – ‘working days’ doesn’t include the weekends, but also excluded are public holidays, of which France has quite a lot. So an estimate for livraison dans les cinq jours ouvrés – might actually take almost two weeks to reach you, if there are weekend days and public holidays in between.

Days on either side of public holidays (known as ‘pont‘ days) are technically working days, but don’t be too surprised if things don’t happen on these days either.

Although ouvrés looks similar to ouvrir (to open) the root of the work is actually ouvrer – an archaic verb meaning to work or to labour.

This word was gradually supplanted by travailler in around the 16th century, but some derivatives of it are still used – most commonly ouvrier (or ouvrière for women) which means a worker – it can be used for all types of salaried workers, but is more commonly used for people who do manual labour or work with their hands.

It’s often used in a political sense too – one of France’s leftist political parties is Lutte ouvrière, which translates as Worker’s struggle.

Use it like this

La livraison est estimée à trois jours ouvrés – Delivery is estimated within three working days

Les résultats seront communiqués sous 48 hours (jours ouvrés) – the results will be sent within 48 hours (on working days)

Not to be confused with

If you want to talk about ‘open days’ – days when institutions including schools, the military or artists workshops open up to the public – in France these are known as portes ouvertes (literally ‘open doors’).

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