Le mot du jour : se casser les dents sur…
Se casser les dents sur quelque chose (to break your own teeth on something) is used when you meet an obstacle that you fail to overcome. The English equivalent could be “to be brought up short by something”
You would say for example : “Je me suis cassée les dents sur ce problème de maths !” (I failed to solve this maths problem)
We started this conversation last week talking about the protests in France. As the strikes are still going strong today, a French person could be thinking “Hmm, le président va se casser les dents sur sa réforme !” Only time will tell 😉
(And I’m not going to put a picture of a broken tooth, because that is too painfull to watch!)