In the article above I came accross the expression “bayer aux corneilles”.
Et quand une touriste espagnole s’ennuie, elle ne baye pas aux corneilles, elle se met à danser à la sévillane.
The expression “bayer aux corneilles” means:
To daydream
The whole sentence above can be translated as:
And when a Spanish tourist gets bored, she doesn’t daydream – she starts to dance a Sevillana!
The expressions “kézako” or more correctly “quésaco” are both derivatives of the provençal expression “Qu’es aco?” which means:
Qu’est-ce que c’est?
You usually add it to the end of a sentence, for example:
Le pod-casting, kézako?
In English, it means:
What is it?
Whilst reading Jacques Chirac’s stepping down speech transcript in “Le Monde”, I came accross a few idiomatic expressions:
Aller de l’avant:
To go forward, to advance
Avoir à coeur:
To be committed to
Etre aux avant-postes:
To be on the forefront
I was recently doing a translation of a newsaper article for somebody (from French to English) on Cumumis, a great FREE translation service. In the article I came accross the word “Cheval d’Arceau”.
Un “Cheval d’Arceau” is used for gymnastics and can be translated to English as:
Vault or Vaulting Horse
For more information about what a Vault is, have a look at this Wikipedia article.
The French expression, “avoir du chien”, means:
To have style, to have panache, to have that something
The French expression, “se la péter” means:
To be full of oneself, to be too big for one’s boots, to be a showoff
He is a great example (with image) of this phrase in use.