Running In Circles In Every Nook And Cranny – Two French Idioms Posted by John Bauer on Mar 14, 2018 in Culture, Vocabulary
Singing along to a song makes repeating the same few words over and over again much more fun and feels a lot less like les devoirs (homework). However, sometimes it can be hard to sing along, especially if the singer has a strong accent or there are a lot of expressions françaises!
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La semaine dernière (last week) I posted about une chanson (a song) I really like and when I was working on la traduction anglaise (the English translation) of les paroles I came across deux expressions (two expressions) that didn’t have a perfect equivalent en anglais.
La première expression gave me the most trouble since it’s in the chorus of the song:
En long, en large et en travers
Lengthwise, widthwise and across
The literal translation of l’expression kind of makes sense, but it sounds very bizarre. The saying is meant to carry the feeling of understanding or knowing something fully and completely. When used to talk about a physical location it can safely be translated as every nook and cranny.
In la traduction des paroles, I decided to use the following:
Up, down and side to side
It keeps the feeling of physical space that the original has, but keeps the more symbolic meaning it has in la chanson.
La deuxième expression was less troublesome, because it is only used in one verse:
Ça ne tourne pas rond
It doesn’t turn round
Unsurprisingly, the literal translation of l’expression sounds strange in English again, but it immediately makes sense after hearing la traduction:
There’s something’s not right
There’s something’s wrong
There’s something’s amiss
There’s something fishy
The idiom refers to something that doesn’t feel right in some vague way and it’s easy to see how something that’s not turning round has a problem somewhere. The idea is that a turn should be curved or circular and not jagged or crooked.
Ne tourner pas rond is also it’s used in another fun French expression:
Ça ne tourne pas rond chez toi !
There’s something wrong with you!
La semaine dernière, if you missed ces expressions when you listened to la chanson, Petit Sœur, make sure you listen to it again and see if you can understand them now!
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About the Author: John Bauer
John Bauer is an enthusiast for all things language and travel. He currently lives in France where he's doing his Master's. John came to France four years ago knowing nothing about the language or the country, but through all the mistakes over the years, he's started figuring things out.