Transcript of the video

Welcome to this video format where we see in a few minutes a French expression. So today, we're going to see the expression noyer le poisson. This expression is a bit strange because drowning a fish, in fact, is impossible.

The fish breathes in the water. So, let's see what this expression means in context and especially, where it comes from. So when we say that we try to drown the fish, it means that we try to divert a conversation in a conversation with someone, there is a subject which is approached.

And you, you don't want to talk about it or you try to talk about yourself? Try really hard to divert the conversation so that we don't talk about this topic anymore. Because it bothers you? It embarrasses you or you are not allowed to talk about it? Because you promised someone that you didn't bring it up? So you are really trying to bury the fish. So you're trying to bury the subject and move on to another topic in the conversation.

I'll give you some context. It's okay, it will help you understand better. Here is a first context. So often, we can say that politicians try to drown the fish when they don't have the answer to a question. If you ask a politician how much a metro ticket costs in Paris, he might answer that the important thing is not how much a metro ticket costs, but how much can be reimbursed each year to people who take the metro.

You see, there, he perfectly drowned the fish. In fact, he didn't know how to answer the question. So he diverted the conversation. He hid, he did. He kind of hid that he didn't know how to answer by changing the. Changing the subject a little bit, here's another example. If you have, for example, a friend who is pregnant but doesn't want to say it yet and someone says to what have you noticed, Maria has really gotten fat, unless she's pregnant.

And you, you haven't made much progress. You keep it a secret, you don't want to talk about it. So, you're going to try to drown out the fish, to divert the conversation to talk about someone else instead, for example to answer it? Ah, I don't know, I haven't noticed. But I don't know if you've seen Sandra, but she's in her eighth month of pregnancy. She's really huge. She looks like she's going to explode.

You have. Diverting the conversation you're going to drown the fish, this expression drown the fish, in fact, it becomes a date of the time and it was used to say that we put a lot of sauce on the fish, to hide in fact the taste of a fish that was not very fresh, that calls for a strong. It was no longer very good to put a lot of sauce on it to hide the bad taste of the fish. That's it for that expression. It's over for today.

I hope you enjoyed this video. If you liked it, please give it a thumbs up. Don't hesitate to tell me in comments if there are expressions that you would like me to explain and put in context. I wish you all a very, very nice day and I say to you very, very quickly.