The French expression “avaler des couleuvres” translates literally to “to swallow garter snakes.” Seemingly unpleasant, English meanings include:
- to accept something against your will
- to have something forced on you
Other definitions in French on wordreference.com include “to believe anything your told” and “to endure humiliation or insults”.
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Many of our students have greatly enhanced their learning by using an app. On these pages we've examined the top-30 apps for learning French. On this pages we've written comprehensive reviews for Pimsleur (great for people struggling with pronunciation), Rosetta Stone and FrenchPod101 (both great for visual learners).
Here’s an example sentence:
- Marie ne voulait pas se marier avec Pierre: elle a dû avaler les couleuvres. Marie didn’t want to marry Pierre. She had to accept the marriage against her will.
If you've found this post useful you might want to considering looking at our post covering the best apps for learning French. We've looked a total 33 apps and have written comprehensive reviews of Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur and FrenchPod101.
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Bonjour! My name is David Issokson. I'm based in Victor, Idaho (near Jackson, Wyoming) and have helped hundreds of students to learn French online since 2013.
