And you thought we had strange expressions...

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm planning on studying languages (why else would I want to go on an über expensive language course in France), particularly French and Mandarin Chinese.
I've gotten a head start with learning French this year by going to lessons with the Alliance Française, and getting as much French exposure as I can.

Recently, I got my hands on a Collins Dictionary of French Idioms - for those of you who didn't pay attention in English class, an idiom is an expression commonly used in speech.
They say when you can speak a language idiomatically, you can say you speak it fluently.

Anyway, the French have some very interesting strange idioms (lots involving butter and cats....um...).
I've made a list of the best ones (by best I mean the strangest ones I could find).

1) "avoir le cafard" - this is the expression for, as we'd say, "to have the blues" or feel down. In French it means "to have the cockroach". 

2) "faire la grasse matinée" - to have a lie-in, in French it means "to have a fat morning".

3) "être aux petits oignons" - to be perfect, in French it means "to be cooked with pickling onions"

4) "manger de la vache enragée" - to go through hard times, in French it means "to eat rabid cow"

5)"donner sa langue au chat" - to give up, in French, "to give your tongue to the cat"

6) "raconter des salades" -  to tell stories (lies), in French, "to tell salads"

7) "avoir une arraignée au plafond" - to have a screw loose, to be crazy, in French, "to have a spider on the ceiling". I think this one's somewhat appropriate - having spiders on my ceiling or anywhere) makes me feel like going crazy too....

8) "vouloir le beurre et l'argent du beurre" - to have your cake and eat it, in French, "to want the butter and the money for the butter". See, they like butter.

9) "avoir un chat dans la gorge" - to have a frog in your throat, in French, "to have a cat in your throat"

10) "ménager la chèvre et le chou" - to sit on the fence, literally " to show consideration for the goat and the cabbage"

11) "avoir d'autres chats à fouetter" - to have other fish to fry, literally, "to have other cats to whip". Shame.

12) "peigner la girafe" - to do a pointless task, literally, "to comb the giraffe". Yes, that would be a pointless thing to do!


So that's my list of fairly odd idioms....and one more that I might possibly hear whilst in France, "tu parles  français comme une vache espagnole". You speak French like a Spanish cow.

Let's hope not.