{"id":15361,"date":"2012-06-29T10:00:52","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T08:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=15361"},"modified":"2017-10-20T13:08:52","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T11:08:52","slug":"french-idioms-related-to-waiting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-idioms-related-to-waiting\/","title":{"rendered":"French Idioms Related to Waiting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nobody likes to wait, right? At least for a very long time. So here are some idioms related to the concept of waiting, in French.<\/p>\n

Faire le pied de grue \/ faire le poireau<\/strong> – to hang around, to wait while standing.
\nIl a fait le pied de grue pendant une heure devant le restaurant et comme elle n’arrivait pas, il est entr\u00e9 chez lui. [He hung around for one hour in front of the restaurant and as she didn’t arrive, he went home.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Faire les cent pas<\/strong> – to pace
\nJ’ai fait les cent pas devant le cin\u00e9ma en attendant Michel. [I paced in front of the movie theater while waiting for Michel.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Attendre quelqu’un (quelque chose) de pied ferme –<\/strong> to be ready and waiting
\nSoyez pr\u00eats \u00e0 l’heure, je passerai vous chercher \u00e0 8 heure. – On t’attendra de pied ferme. [Be ready on time, I will pick you up at 8 o’clock. We will be ready and waiting.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Voir venir<\/strong> – to wait and see
\nPour l’instant, je ne veux pas investir mon argent. Je pr\u00e9f\u00e8re voir venir. [Right now I don’t want to invest my money. I prefer to wait and see.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Prendre son mal en patience<\/strong> – to wait without complaining
\nIl faut prendre ton mal en patience, dans une semaine tu seras sorti de l’h\u00f4pital. [You have to wait patiently, you will be out of the hospital in one week.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Ronger son frein<\/strong> – to chomp at the bit
\nJe vien d’envoyer le manuscrit de mon premier roman \u00e0 un \u00e9diteur. Je ronge mon frein en attendant la r\u00e9ponse du comit\u00e9 de lecture. [I have just sent the manuscript of my first novel to a publisher. I’m chomping at the bit waiting for the response from the reading committee.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Faire faux bond \u00e0 quelqu’un<\/strong> – to let somebody down, to keep somebody waiting, to leave someone hanging
\nJ’attendais Marie pour qu’elle me traduise un text espagnol mais elle n’est pas venue, elle m’a fait faux bond. [I was waiting for Marie to translate a Spanish text but she didn’t come, she left me hanging.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Attendre le d\u00e9gel<\/strong> – to wait without doing anything (lit. to wait for something to thaw)
\nIl y a encore plein de travail \u00e0 faire. Qu’est-ce que tu attends? Tu attends le d\u00e9gel? [There’s still a lot of work to be done. What are you waiting for? For something to thaw?]<\/em><\/p>\n

Examples adapted from Pr\u00e9cis – Les expressions idiomatiques<\/em>. Image from Google<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00c0 bient\u00f4t! On se voit!<\/em><\/p>\n

Want more free resources to learn French<\/a>? Check out the other goodies we offer to help make your language learning efforts a daily habit.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Nobody likes to wait, right? At least for a very long time. So here are some idioms related to the concept of waiting, in French. Faire le pied de grue \/ faire le poireau – to hang around, to wait while standing. Il a fait le pied de grue pendant une heure devant le restaurant…<\/p>\n

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