Last updated on November 7th, 2022 at 10:39 am
Learning French expressions is fascinating. Sometimes, they are very similar to the expressions we have in our mother tongue, sometimes, they are close but not exactly the same, and other times, they are completely different.
When you have a French conversation, it’s always useful to know some expressions. Here are French expressions that include colors. Do the quiz first and then look at the explanations.
Do you know these French Expressions that include colors?
Let’s take this quiz and see if you can guess the meaning of these French expressions:
1. passer une nuit blanche
a. nuit sans lune
b. nuit sans sommeil, au cours de laquelle on ne dort pas.
c. nuit de pleine lune
2. avoir une peur bleue :
a. avoir très peur
b. avoir une belle apparence,
c. avoir de la chance
3. travailler au noir
a. travailler très dur
b. travailler sans lumière
c. travailler clandestinement, sans être déclaré
4. voir la vie en rose :
a. voir tout du bon côté
b. se relancer dans une nouvelle aventure sentimentale
c. se laisser tromper parce qu’on n’y comprend rien
5. rouge comme une cerise :
a. être dans la zone d’urgence, de difficulté, de danger…
b. faire honneur
c. rougir, à cause de sa timidité.
Answers :
1 – b / 2 – a / 3 – c / 4 – a / 5 – c
Some Explanations about these French Expressions
Some expressions are quite recent while others were used in the Middle Ages already!
1. “passer une nuit blanche” means not sleeping all night. It comes from the Middle Ages: the knights had to make a vigil of arms before being dubbed: they spent the night praying in a church or a chapel, dressed in white.
2. avoir une peur bleue is an expression that we find for the first time in 1890 in Zola’s La Bête Humaine. But it seems that its origin comes from Old French. In some swear words, the word God has been replaced by the word bleu: for example Parbleu! for “By God!”, Ventrebleu! for “Belly [of] God!” or Sacrebleu for “Sacre de Dieu”. The blue flear might come from the “Fear of God”!
3. travailler au noir: work clandestinely. In this expression, which corresponds to outlaw activities, ‘black’ is related to what one wants to conceal. This expression was born towards the end of the 1914-1918 war in Germany. It was a time when the country had serious problems. ‘Schwarz’ (black) was already used in terms like ‘Schwarzarbeit’ (black work), ‘Schwarzmarkt’ (black market), or ‘schwarzhören’ (listening to the radio without paying tax). For some, the origin would be German but according to others, it would come from the Middle Ages, when certain masters did not hesitate to make them work illegally after dark, by the light of a few candles.
4. voir la vie en rose means to be happy, to see everything positively. In French, we do not have the origin of many expressions, and this expression is one of them. You have to remember that pink is a soft and cheerful color….soothing; “voir la vie en rose” implies that we are in a state of mind where everything is good, and everything is seen in a positive way.
5. rouge comme une cerise is also an expression for which the origin is not known. To blush figuratively means to be ashamed and this red color is reminiscent of the fruit.
Are you interested in learning more French expressions? Join Live-French Free trial and practice conversation in French with a native-French teacher.
