Sometimes les expressions françaises (French expressions, idioms) leave me scratching my head wondering what exactly a fat morning could mean. Luckily, parfois (sometimes) les expressions françaises immediately make sense without ever needing them explained!

Image from Pixabay. Licensed under CC0.

Most of the time when I hear a strange combination of des mots (some words) like being known like the white wolf, I know it’s une expression I need to learn.

However, I had a fun counterexample to my usual experience récemment (recently). I was working on a big stressful project au travail (at work) and mon collègue (my coworker) must have seen how distraught I looked. To try and cheer me up and not let la stresse get to me, they looked at me and said:

Petit à petit l’oiseau fait son nid. 
Little by little the bird makes its nest. 

I had never heard l’expression before, but it immediately made sense and la stresse fell away for a moment as I thanked mon collègue for teaching me something new! I still had a ways to go on the project, but the small triumph of understanding une nouvelle expression française made the day much better.

Une fois chez moi (once I was home), I looked up l’expression to find out if there was an equivalent en anglais. The best I could find is the familiar moral of La lièvre et la torture (the Tortoise and the Hare):

Slow and steady wins the race. 

No matter how you say it, it’s a nice phrase to hear when you are feeling overwhelmed. If you ever feel like learning French is impossible or there are too many conjugaisons, just remember:

Petit à petit l’oiseau fait son nid.