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FRENCH WORD OF THE DAY

French expression of the day: Tendre une perche

Although this might sound like you're about to take part in an athletics event, the phrase has a more straightforward and everyday meaning.

French expression of the day: Tendre une perche

Why do I need to know tendre une perche?

It's a fairly common phrase that will come up in everyday conversation, and in a workplace setting.

What does it mean?

Its literal translation is the rather athletic sounding 'throw a pole' or 'throw a line' but in fact it really means to give someone a chance, offer a helping hand or perhaps throw them a bone.

Laisse-moi lui tendre une perche, elle a vraiment du mal avec sa grammaire française – Let me help her out, she's really struggling with her French grammar.

Je sais qu'il est ennuyeux, mais tu dois lui tendre une perche – I know he's annoying, but you've got to give him a chance.

Permettez-moi simplement de tendre une perche au maire pour qu'il prenne la bonne décision – Allow me to simply offer the mayor a helping hand so that he may make the right decision.

Any other options?

If you want to be a bit more literal in what you are saying, you could use the phrase Donner une chance – to give a chance or Donner un coup de main – to give a helping hand.

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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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