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FRENCH WORD OF THE DAY

French expression of the day: Genre

This youthful expression is a must-know if you want to understand French teenagers.

French expression of the day: Genre

Why do I need to know genre?

Young people use it all the time so if you want to hang out with the hip crowd, or just understand what your own teenagers are on about, this one is for you.

What does it mean?

There are two types of genre: the term that means “gender” in English and the slang version, which is slightly more complicated. When used as slang, genre can most often be translated into “like” in English.

When used this way, genre – like “like” – is neither adding any value to the sentence or necessary for the sentence to make sense. But it makes you sound young and hip:

Genre, je n'avais pas de choix – Like, I didn't have any choice.

Il n'avait genre aucun respect pour moi – He had, like, no respect for me.

Any other options?

Another way of using genre is through the expression faire genre, or pretend to do something.

J'ai fais genre de ne pas comprendre – I pretended not to understand.

Elle a fait genre de m'écouter – She pretended to listen to me.

It can also be used as a way of expressing rejection of an idea or a statement. 

Oh, genre! – Oh, as if!

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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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