Collins - Collins easy learning French idioms

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Collins Easy Learning French Idioms is an invaluable resource for learners of French who want to be able to communicate more naturally. It will enable you to start to include colourful idiomatic phrases and expressions in both your writing and conversation, increasing your confidence and effectiveness. It can be used to develop your language skills, whether you are studying French at school or university, at home or at an evening class.

Developing expertise in writing, speaking and understanding a foreign language means being able to pull together and build on a number of different aspects vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and so on. An important element of increased proficiency in communication is the use of idioms and figurative expressions which will add colour and variety to your writing and conversation as well as enabling you to sound more natural and confident. Idioms are phrases whose meaning may not be obvious from the words they contain. For example, a common English idiom is Add fuel to the fire. If somebody adds fuel to the fire, they make a bad situation worse.

Collins Easy Learning French Idioms has been carefully designed to provide a rich and easy-to-use resource for extending your language skills. It contains 250 phrases and expressions, all of which have been selected because they are commonly used by French speakers today. These idioms are then arranged by theme, 25 in all. Each of these subjects covers an area of everyday life or experience, such as Health, happiness, pleasure and enjoyment, Madness, foolishness and stupidity, and Directness, decisiveness and expressing opinions.

For maximum clarity, each French idiom is followed by a word-for-word English translation as well as the equivalent idiomatic expression(s) that you would use in English. In many cases, a short background note is included if some explanation or additional information about French language or culture is required. Then, in order to illustrate the use of the idiom in a natural context, a sentence or two of French is provided. Again, this is translated into idiomatic English. For example:

to have the cockroach
= to have the blues
= to be feeling down

Another expression for this is avoir le bourdon, literally to have the bumblebee.

Si vous avez le cafard, ne restez pas seul : rien de tel quune sortie entre amis pour vous changer les ides et oublier vos problmes.

If youre feeling down, dont stay on your own: there is nothing like going out with your friends to take your mind off things and help you forget your problems.

• easy to use: 250 colourful idiomatic expressions arranged in 25 themes to do with daily life and common experience

• easy to read