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FRENCH WORD OF THE DAY

French word of the day: Jeûne

This term has nothing to do with age - although some claim it's the key to staying young forever.

French word of the day: Jeûne
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

Why do I need to know jeûner?

Because even if the activity itself doesn't interest you, it will teach you something valuable about French everyday language.

What does it mean?

Jeune means 'young' in French, but switch the u and replace it with a û and it means 'fast'.

Jeûner – 'to fast' – refers to the activity of abstaining from eating and/or drinking for a certain period of time.

It comes from the Latin term jejenus, which means 'who has eaten nothing', according to French online dictionary Larousse.

Déjeuner, the French term for 'lunch', therefore literally means 'de-fast', or rompre le jeûne (breaking the fast) – like the English term 'breakfast'. 

Déjeuner used to refer to the first meal of the day, but was later supplemented by petit déjeuner in France (but some other French speaking countries still use déjeuner to talk about the first meal of the day). 

À jeun (at fast) is a term health professionals use when they want you to refrain from eating before a checkup.

 

Originally, le jeûne was usually part of a religious ritual, but today it's increasingly turning into a fitness trend – especially since several studies states its effets rajeunissants – rejuvenating effects. 

Use it like this

Il faut venir à jeun pour la prise du sang. – You must not eat before the blood test.

J'essaye de jeûner une fois par semaine, du coup je ne prends pas de petit déjeuner ce matin. – I'm trying to fast once a week, so I'm skipping breakfast this morning.

Non, Mélina ne va pas déjeuner avec nous ce midi, c'est Ramadan tu sais, elle va jeûner jusqu'au soir. – No, Mélina is not coming for lunch with us, it's Ramadan you know, she's fasting until nightfall.

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FRENCH WORD OF THE DAY

French Expression of the Day: Caillou dans la chaussure

This one might come in handy when you’re complaining about French bureaucracy.

French Expression of the Day: Caillou dans la chaussure

Why do I need to know Caillou dans la chaussure?

Because, sometimes, you just need to tell someone about your frustration with life’s little, annoying, metaphorically painful niggles.

What does it mean?

Caillou dans la chaussure – roughly pronounced kay-oo don la shass-your – translates as ‘stone in the shoe’, is a phrase as old as time, and means exactly what it says.

You can use this in a literal sense, for example if you’re hiking and get gravel in your boots, but it’s more usually used as a metaphor.

When someone says they have a pebble in their shoe, it means that something is not right – and it describes the metaphorical feeling of something troublesome that is more painful than it really needs to be and is creating bigger problems than its size would suggest.

You can use it about your own problems, and it’s also used to describe something that is a big problem for someone else – in English you might say something is the ‘millstone around their neck’ to describe a big, weighty problem that won’t go away.

Use it like this

Nouvelle-Calédonie : le gros caillou dans la chaussure de Macron – New Caledonia is the millstone around Macron’s neck

Nous connaissons tous cette sensation désagréable d’avoir un caillou coincé dans notre chaussure – We all know that unpleasant feeling of having a stone stuck in our shoe.

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