Le mot du jour : La Toussaint

La Toussaint is a catholic celebration of all the Saints (Toussaint= tous les Saints= all saints) that takes place on the 1st of November. It’s not the same as the Day of the Dead, which is the next day.
La Toussaint is not a fun celebration like Halloween here, but the children have a two weeks holiday, and even the adults get a day off work on the 1st of November. Traditionally, people would buy flowers (usually chrysanthemum) and go to the cemetery on the family grave. This tradition tends to disappear but the sell of chrysanthemum is still huge at that time of the year.

Le mot du jour : “Sacrebleu !” (literally Holy blue)

Swearing words that no French people ever use in real life 😀
This expression started with Henri IV, king of France at the end of the XVI century, and well known for swearing a lot, using the sacrilege expression “sacredieu” (holy god). His religious advisors thought better for him to use something more respectful, and created the now well known “sacrebleu”.
Even if you can find it in almost every article about France here, in reality people would be very surprised to hear someone use it.
If you don’t want to seem too outdated, go with “La vache !” (une vache is a cow) 😄

Le mot du jour : “Il pleut des hallebardes !”

Word for word, it means “It’s raining halberds” which, as you can guess, describe a very strong rain 😀
It can also be declined in “Il pleut des cordes” (“It’s raining ropes”)…

Fitting for today’s weather!

In every day French, a camembert is not only a famous cheese, but also a pie chart 🙂

Le mot de la semaine/ this week’s phrase :

Avoir la pêche : literally “to have the peach”, means to be energetic, full of beans. 😀
Nobody seems to be really sure of the origin of that turn of phrase. It can also be declined into “avoir la frite” (to have the chip).

Je vous souhaite à tous d’avoir la pêche pour cette nouvelle semaine ! I wish you all to be full of energy for this week!