{"id":30153,"date":"2018-04-18T20:29:56","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T18:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=30153"},"modified":"2018-04-18T20:29:56","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T18:29:56","slug":"staying-in-the-juice-useful-french-expressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/staying-in-the-juice-useful-french-expressions\/","title":{"rendered":"Staying In The Juice – Useful French Expressions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learning new expressions is a fun but difficult part of learning une langue<\/strong> (a language). It gets even harder when des expressions<\/strong> start building on top of each other by adding in les jeux de mots<\/strong> (puns).<\/p>\n

\"\"

Image<\/a> by Caitlin Regan on Flickr. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.<\/p><\/div>\n

There is a very useful expression fran\u00e7aise<\/strong> (French expression) that is nice and short and doesn’t involve having to understand any fairy tales<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Se tenir au courant<\/strong>
\nTo keep in the loop<\/a>, To keep updated, (Literally: To hold oneself in the current)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The important part of l’expression<\/strong> is le dernier mot<\/strong> (the last word):<\/p>\n

Le courant
\n<\/strong>The current<\/em>
\n<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Understanding that it means inform\u00e9<\/strong> (informed) is pretty easy to see and if you ever get lost, a non-idiomatic way to say the same thing is simply se tenir inform\u00e9<\/em><\/strong> (to keep\/stay informed)<\/em>. However, le courant<\/strong> is important to people learning French, because it has so many possible definitions:<\/p>\n

Le courant<\/strong> – The current, the power, the flow, the tendency
\nCourant<\/strong> (adj) – Common, everyday, usual<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In l’expression<\/strong>, le courant<\/strong> is used to refers to something common<\/em> or known<\/em>. Cela dit<\/strong> (that said), there is another expression fran\u00e7aise<\/strong><\/a> that builds on se teir au courant<\/strong><\/em>, but uses le jus<\/strong><\/em>:<\/p>\n

Se tenir au jus<\/strong>
\nTo keep in the loop, To keep updated, (Literally: To hold oneself in the juice)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because this is une expression<\/strong><\/a>, it’s easy to just accept that you have to say le jus<\/strong><\/em>, but after learning what le courant<\/strong> means in the original version, le jus<\/strong> <\/em>seems rather out of place.<\/p>\n

Pourquoi on parle du jus de fruits ?<\/strong>
\nWhy are we talking about fruit juice?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Le jus<\/strong> <\/em>comes from un jeu de mots<\/strong> (a play on words, a pun) with le courant<\/strong>. One of the definitions for le courant<\/strong> refers to electricity and le jus<\/strong> is an informal way to refer to le courant \u00e9l\u00e9ctrique<\/strong> (the electric current).<\/p>\n

La confusion<\/strong> comes from how le jeu de mots<\/strong> is based on a different definition for le courant <\/strong>than the one used in l’expression<\/strong><\/a>!<\/p>\n

Understanding how a strange use of le jus<\/strong> <\/em>actually makes sense makes remembering both se tenir au courant<\/strong> <\/em>and se tenir au jus<\/strong> <\/em>easier. As an added bonus, with one expression we learned three different words to say the same thing:<\/p>\n

Inform\u00e9 \u2192 Au courant \u2192 Au jus<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Learning new expressions is a fun but difficult part of learning une langue (a language). It gets even harder when des expressions start building on top of each other by adding in les jeux de mots (puns). There is a very useful expression fran\u00e7aise (French expression) that is nice and short and doesn’t involve having…<\/p>\n

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