5 French Weird Expressions
formal
1) emprunter les wc
= someone asks you permission to use the restroom
Est-ce que je peux vous emprunter vos toilettes, s’il vous plaît ?
borrow = emprunter
Imagine a situation where you make a delivery at a company, they don’t expect you to stay for more than that but you need to go to the restroom. You can definitely use this sentence to ask permission!
PS: the extreme politeness of this request makes it really hard to get you a “no”
colloquial
2) vous appeler quelqu’un
= call someone for you
Ne bougez pas, je vous appelle mon collègue.
⛔Don’t move, I call you “my coworker”
Imagine someone comes to you and you realize you can’t answer his questions but someone else in your team can so by using this sentence, you ask him to wait and you go call your coworker.
3) mettre quelqu’un bien
= do eveything you can to help someone feel comfortable and enjoy
Fais-moi confiance, je vais te mettre bien !
Imagine a friend is having a bad day so you decide to plan something special for him / her. Using that sentence means that he / she can leave everything to you.
4) remettre le bonjour
= say hello to someone for someone else
Vous remettrez le bonjour à votre femme !
Imagine you meet someone you haven’t met in a while (maybe you used to be neighbours for example)…
You talk about family, news, etc. and at the end, you ask him to say hello to his wife for you. It will be considered as small kindness.
PS: remember that if someone uses this sentence, you will probably hear “vous r’mettrez l’bonjour à vot’ femme”
5) être au taquet
= be at the limit of brackets (something that helps holding a door or a shelf)
Il est au taquet, lui ! Ça se voit qu’il veut réussir.
Imagine someone who is really motivated and does whatever it takes to succeed!
People around can say this as a compliment but depending on the context, it can also sound ironic or even mocking as an attempt to hide one’s jealousy…
