dmu

Hi, this was just confirmed on the France Inter radio quiz show "Jeu des 1000 euros". It wasn't you who sent the question, was it?

Peabrain

Nah mate, not me.

If you're interested, or if you didn't already know, the 'Jeu des Mille euros' used to be called, way back of course, 'Le Jeu des Mille Francs' and was presented by one Lucien Jeunesse, for over thirty years I believe. A sort of predecessor to "Who wants to be a millionaire" or as the natives here call it "Qui veut gagner des millions?" Lucien Jeunesse always used to sign off with "À demain, si vous le voulez bien" and was generally thought of as Mr Nice Guy, always smiling.

PB

dmu

Chers amis, bonjour! I used to listen to Lucien Jeunesse way back in the early 70's when I first arrived here. At the beginning, I thought it was "Jeu d'Emile Franc"
My daughter was in it once (Spécial Jeunes) when Louis Bozon was the presenter, but she stumbled on the Banco. We're still using the transistor that she won!

jannabanna

I saw this once in a book where they translated English to French word for word - so funny!

"Je vous avoir savoir que je ne suis pas un homme avec lequel on peut trifler!"

dmu

In the last couple of days, two different French people have written me the following: "les tenants et les aboutissants". In legalese it means parts adjacent a property, but I gathered from the context that both meant "how it works", and the dictionary gave the equivalent English idiom: "the ins and outs".

Tweedpipe

I enjoyed that.

Just for fun, I typed what was no doubt the original English phrase into Google Translate - which these days is pretty good - and it came up with a very acceptable, Je vais vous faire savoir que je ne suis pas un homme à jouer avec.
From the original English phrase, my own tongue-in-cheek translator would probably be, Je vais vous faire savoir que je ne suis pas un homme à alterner génoise fruits en gelée et crème anglaise.

Blackladder

I bet that was a guy who had:

se marié au dessus de sa gare

google that one!
Blackie

Tweedpipe

Excellent!

Don't tell me...... he was a platform attendant and waved a flag and blew a whistle walking down the isle with his bride to be!

Jon-Bxl

Hi Does anybody have a 'nifty tip' on using the terms tout, tous and toutes properly, please?

Thanks
Jon

dmu

Hi, difficult to explain "tout" without giving a lot of examples: e.g. "à tout moment" = at any moment, but "tout le monde" = everybody, and "tout le temps" = all the time; "tout homme" = any man, "toute femme" = any woman. "Toute la salle riait" = the whole auditorium laughed.
"tous" concerns all masculine nouns in the plural: "tous les trains" = all (the) trains
"toutes" concerns all feminine nouns in the plural: "toutes les fleurs" = all (the) flowers.
Hope this helps a little, but it's one of those things that you have to learn!

Jon-Bxl

Thanks dmu for the help.

I was hoping there may be an 'astuce' for using it..... some crafty 'aide memoire' that someone had thought of.

Yep I'll have to put the learning cap back on!

Merci pour tout, errr toutes..... errr tous

Jon

victorian67

I love the charming way you are trying to translate my impossible language

Well done to all of you

dmu

I nearly took umbrage at the "trying" in the first sentence, but didn't, on reading the second.

Blackladder

How about this one?

J'en ai ma claque!

I've 'ad enough of this!

MashedPotatoesEater

Les toilettes, s'il vous plait ? Pretty useful after a night out