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- "Les murs ont des oreilles."
114 Comments
1404
Brings to mind one of my grandma's idioms: "Little pitchers have big ears" meaning that children are listening quietly and are going to hear whatever it is you're saying so be warned.
Yes this is correct. In the second world war, this was used by british (and perhaps other nations too) government as propaganda. It was reminding people not to talk about secrets that give away information, like blackout curtains, or how they covered up signs of rail stations. also just normal info on how the war was going, because thee were many german spies playing regular british people. Hope this was interesting! EA
125
I have a Tamagotchi ON, and I was going to mate my Kungfuatchi to a Tamagotchi with those ears (or hat, or whatever) when I lost connection to the server. If the owner of that Tamagotchi ever reads this, tell me! Please! Heartbroken here!
In fact, plural noun + verb is an optional liaison. You would pronounce the s in 'murs ont' if speaking more formally. In the case of 'Les absents ont', the s in 'les' is a required liaison but the s in 'absents' is again optional. Therefore you should always hear the first in any register of speech, but not always the second. Of course, native speakers frequently speak so fast that liaison rules disappear!
There are two famous rules of ''forbidden liaison''.
1. You never make liaison between a nominal group (simply put as noun phrase) and a verb. Hence no liaison between (les murs) and (ont).
2. There is no liaison between singular noun (followed by an adjective) and that adjective. e.g un enfant anglais. There will be no liaison between enfant (singular noun) and anglais (adjective).
Same in Serbia!
The walls are listening-Zidovi slušaju
or The walls have ears-Zidovi imaju uši
Which is funny when I think about this- when parents/grandparents/teachers think you're not paying attention, they say ''Dobro,kome ja ovo pričam? Zidovima?'' meaning- ''So who am I telling this [to]? The walls?'' so it's funny we contradict ourselves
1591
In French, "A little bird told me" translates to "Mon petit doigt m'a dit" (literally: "my little finger told me").
The way I've heard it, the saying "The walls have ears" arose when the wealthy upper class lived in elaborate homes with servants. Many of these homes included narrow passageways between the walls so that the servants could attend to their masters without being seen. Unfortunately, this meant it was very difficult to have a private conversation. At any given moment, a servant could be passing through the narrow passageways, listening to the conversations. I remember visiting one such home and seeing an example of these passageways. It's a fascinating piece of history.
286
In Chinese it's "隔墻有耳(There are ears across the wall)", this expression first appeared in 475BC-221BC in a book
It's kind of like saying that you never know who is listening and when they are listening.
1051
I have a question. Why is the s in "murs" not pronounced, but in "des" it is pronounced? Strange, as both words are followed by an "o". Hmm...
@Ginjaji Learning a language is a lot like making a new friend. You won't always understand the reasons why things are the way they are- not all at once. It takes time. The more time you spend at it, the more familiar it becomes. The more familiar it becomes, the more you will begin to understand and learn. It's a process we've all gone through, and continue to go through. There will quite likely be a time when you will say these things to someone who will be where you once were. Why? because you 'can' do this :-)
Don't lose your spirit! Just keep learning-practice makes perfect! And keep in mind, a lot of people here have had some experience with french-whether it be in school(like me), travelling, having a friend whose mother tongue is french etc, and some of them even are french, just hanging around, easy lingots and xp, and they come by to give advice and help :)
It means that you never know if somebody is listening or that you aren't in an environment that is suitable for moving sensitive information.
1591
In the figurative sense, "mur" can mean "cold fish" (in the sense of "pisse-froid"):
- ex: "Cet homme est un vrai mur !" means "This man is a real cold fish!"
2300
You're right. Using "some" in the English translation is actually quite wrong. The "des oreilles" only means that the noun is plural. While there might be an occasion where you could say "some", this is not one of them.
27
I wish they gave much more unusual/solely French expressions instead of ones that match the English. French has them.
I was expecting it to be like the funny Hebrew idioms lists and videos I've seen (like 'on the face' = bad, or 'live in a movie' = delusional).
When someone is "all ears," that means they're listening attentively, waiting for you to speak. "I have an idea." "We're all ears." It's a different from the idea that there could be eavesdroppers listening in on a conversation. One is overt, one is surreptitious.
Also, "the walls are all ears" would conjure up images of walls being made of ears, or that you plan to talk directly to the walls, which wouldn't make any sense. In saying "the walls have ears," it's understood that the walls themselves aren't actually listening, but that other people could be listening in without you knowing.
LINGUESS is a good location to look at idioms: http://www.linguee.com/english-french/search?source=auto=Les+mur+ont+des+oreilles