While discussing pigeons in Paris with his friend Lea, Lionel brings up an amusing French idiom referencing those ubiquitous city birds:

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Alors se faire pigeonner en français,

So "se faire pigeonner" [to be taken for a ride] in French

c'est vraiment se faire arnaquer,

is really to get ripped off,

se faire avoir par une personne

to be had by a person

qui vous a soutiré de l'argent.

who has extracted money from you.

Captions 54-58, Lea & Lionel L - Le parc de Bercy

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Se faire pigeonner literally means "to be taken for a pigeon." In English too, "a pigeon" can refer to someone who's gullible or easily swindled. Pigeons get a bad rap in both languages! 

Let's take a look at some more animal expressions and idioms used in Yabla videos. Here's another bird-related one:

Oui. J'avoue être un peu poule mouillée.

Yes. I admit to being a bit of a wet hen [a wimp].

Caption 23, Le Jour où tout a basculé - Notre appartement est hanté

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Calling someone poule mouillée is equivalent to calling them "chicken." A slightly less pejorative poultry-inspired moniker is un canard:

Qu'ils me disent que je m'affiche,

That they'll say that I am showing off,

qu'ils me traitent de canard

that they'll call me a duck [a slave to love]

Captions 6-7, Grand Corps Malade - Comme une évidence

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Un canard is a person who's so lovestruck they'll do whatever their partner desires. Believe it or not, it's also a slang term for "newspaper." There's even a famous French newspaper called Le Canard enchaîné (The Chained Duck), which Lionel discusses in a few other videos. 

Don't confuse canard with cafard, the word for "cockroach." When used metaphorically, cafard means "depression" or "the blues":

Mon cafard me lâche moins souvent qu'autrefois...

My blues don't let me go as much as before...

Caption 8, Debout Sur Le Zinc - Les mots d'amour

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The expression avoir le cafard means "to be depressed," or literally, "to have the cockroach." And there's the adjective cafardeux/cafardeuse, which can mean either "depressing" or "depressed." Encountering a cockroach in your home can certainly be depressing, to say the least!

Though dogs are as beloved in France as they are in other countries, the word chien (dog) typically means "bad" or "nasty" when used as an adjective:

Fais demain quand le présent est chien

Make tomorrow when the present is bad

Caption 3, Corneille - Comme un fils

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You'll find chien in a couple of idioms involving bad weather, such as un temps de chien (nasty weather) and un coup de chien (a storm):

On va avoir un coup de chien, regarde!

We're going to have a dog's blow [stormy weather], look!

Caption 55, Il était une fois: les Explorateurs - 10. Amerigo Vespucci

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You can also say un temps de cochon (pig weather) instead of un temps de chien:

Et aujourd'hui on a pas un temps de cochon par contre.

And today we don't have pig weather [rotten weather] however.

Caption 22, Lionel - La Cathédrale de Toul

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In American English, "pigs" is a slang term for "cops." But the French call them vaches (cows):

Mort aux vaches, mort aux cons!

Death to the cows ["pigs," i.e., cops], death to the jerks!

Caption 5, Patrice Maktav - La Rue

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Finally, they don't celebrate April Fools' Day in France, but rather "April Fish":

En tout cas j'espère que ce n'est pas un poisson d'avril.

In any event, I hope that it's not an April fish [April fool].

Caption 21, Lionel - à Lindre-Basse

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You can find out more about the poisson d'avril tradition here. And be sure to check out Manon and Clémentine's video Mots et animaux to learn some more expressions featuring cats, dogs, and wolves.

Do you remember from our last lesson Michel Garcia and his mysterious catch from Easter Island? Today we will reveal his secret: what made him famous worldwide was his discovery of a beautiful shell, extremely rare and previously unknown. And the name of this shellfish? The Garciai! Michel's pride in his namesake is second only to that for his son, Tokiroa.

Tokiroa est tout de même plus important que la belle garciai.

Tokiroa is all the same more important than the beautiful garciai.

Caption 43, Le Journal - L'île de Pâques

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By now, you're probably used to adjectives in French following the nouns that they modify (as in le ciel bleu, "the blue sky"). But, as you can see above, the adjective belle precedes the noun Garciai. That's because Garciai is a proper noun, a nom propre, and in French, adjectives precede proper nouns.

In fact, there are a few other occasions when you'll see an adjective placed before the noun it modifies. It can also occur when an adjective is used very often in day-to-day language and is easily associated with the noun that it qualifies (generally these adjectives are short words). For example, notice that the common and monosyllabic adjective long (long), comes before frisson (shiver) in the lovely music video "Les mots d'amour" (The Words of Love) by Debout Sur Le Zinc.

Et ce long frisson qui n'en finit pas

And this long shiver that does not end

Caption 6, Debout Sur Le Zinc - Les mots d'amour

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And, similarly, Ina-Ich places the short and common adjective beau (beautiful/handsome) before gosse (kid), giving us beau gosse, a common French expression that means "handsome" or "good-lookin'," as in, "Hey handsome!"

À quoi penses-tu beau gosse?

What are you thinking about, handsome?

Caption 3, Ina-Ich - Âme armée

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The most common adjectives that you will find placed before a noun are: beau (beautiful), bon (good), grand (tall), gros (big), jeune (young), joli (pretty), mauvais (bad/mean), nouveau (new), petit (small), vieux (old) and their feminine forms. Some examples: un bon livre (a good book), une jolie fleur (a pretty flower), un gentil chien (a nice dog).

However, we should point out that when an adjective of this type is accentuated or highlighted, the tendency is to place it after the noun. You would normally say, C'est une gentille fille (She's a nice girl), but you'd say C’est une fille gentille! (She's a really nice girl!) if you wanted to emphasize gentille.

We expect hot sunny days in the summer, but in Un automne bien chaud, a bright, warm November day throws some people off.

Quinze centimètres sous les pas,

Fifteen centimeters under your feet,

un soleil gros comme ça, et pourtant pas un chat!

a big sun like this, and yet nothing stirring!

Caption 1, Le Journal - Un automne bien chaud

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Notice that the short and common adjective gros (big) this time follows the noun soleil (sun) to emphasize how exceptionally large the sun seems to be on an unusually warm autumn day.

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The sun, the sea, and the words of love: three magical elements right there at your fingertips, waiting to teach you more about the placement of French adjectives. What are you waiting for? Check out the videos!