Radotages d’un Traducteur

Source: Paris-émois

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!

Source: Des Photos et puis Quoi Encore?

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?

Source: Le Monde, Jeudi 17 Mai 2007

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.