As you know, we must stay at home because of the COVID-19. For that reason, we propose you a game from the newspaper Le Figaro. In this game, you will find several words in French that do not come from France, but from other French-speaking territories.
We are going to explain the meaning of these words, but if you want to test yourself, you can play the game of your knowledge playing here.
After the image, we analyze the meaning of the words/expression we have discovered with this game.
Let’s go! That is the true meaning of these words:
– In West Africa, the typical sandwich would be called a pain chargé;
– in New Caledonia (Kanaky), if they ask us where we stay (tu restes où?), what they’re really asking us is: where do you live?
– in the West Indies, tales don’t start with the traditional il était une fois / once upon a time. There, it always starts with cric-crac or kriké-kraké;
– in Quebec, they don’t throw in the towel (jeter l’éponge) but “hang up their skates” (accrocher ses patins);
– in Switzerland, the dryers (sèche-cheveux) are known as foehn;
– in Congo-Kinese, “to be jazz” (être jazz) is to be fashionable; and
– in Algeria, to stand in line is to “make the chain” (faire la chaîne).
What do you think about it? We hope you smiled with these “maybe” unknown expressions and you learned something new, as we did with these words in French that do not come from France.
It is amazing how languages change according to the influence of other languages throughout History. That is why we believe it is always good to get closer to other varieties of the languages we learn, don’t you think?
You can find more funny expressions in French here.
See you in the next post!