In today’s lesson we’ll have a look at the fun French slang expresion que dalle, which means “nothing at all”, “absolutely nothing”, “zilch” and “not a darn/damn thing”.
que dalle
que dalle
Expression origin
There are several theories on the origin of this expression. Que dalle is thought to have from from coa d’ala, meaning “a piece of garlic” or not much at all to eat in the southern French language, Occitan.
Another theory is that que dalle comes from dall, meaning “blind” in Breton, a language of northwestern France. Hence, the expression voir que dalle – to not see anything or “to see like a blind person”.
Example sentences
Notice that for these first two example sentences the grammatical structure is: ne + verb + que dalle.
Tu parles trop vite et je ne pige que dalle.
You’re speaking too fast and I can’t understand a darn thing.
La musique est trop forte et je n’entends que dalle !
The music is too loud and I can’t a damn thing!
The structure of this sentence is a bit different. Here, “que dalle!” is being used to mean “nothing!” or “zilch!”.
Est-ce que tu as appris quelque chose dans cette leçon ? – Que dalle !
Did you underatnd anything in this lesson? – Zilch!
Related lessons
References
