Transcript of the video

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

Fish breathe in water. So, let's see what this expression means in context and, above all, where it comes from. So when we say that we're trying to drown the fish, it means that we're trying to divert a conversation in a conversation with someone, there's a subject that comes up.

Don't you want to talk about it, or are you trying to make it about you? Try really hard to divert the conversation away from this subject. Does it bother you? Does it embarrass you, or are you not allowed to talk about it? Because you promised someone that you wouldn't talk about it? So you're 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. This will help you understand better. Here's a first context. Politicians often try to drown out the truth when they don't know the answer to a question. If you ask a politician how much a metro ticket costs in Paris, he might reply that the important thing is not how much a metro ticket costs, but how much we can reimburse the people who take the metro every year.

There, you see, he drowned the fish perfectly. In fact, he didn't know how to answer the question. So he diverted the conversation. He disguised it. He hid the fact that he didn't know how to answer by changing the subject. Changing the subject a bit, here's another example. If, for example, you have a friend who's pregnant but doesn't want to say it yet, and someone says to what have you noticed, Maria's really put on weight, unless she's pregnant.

And you haven't made much progress. You're keeping it a secret, you don't want to talk about it. So you're going to try and drown out the fish, divert the conversation to talk about someone else instead, for example, to answer it? Ah, I don't know, I haven't noticed. On the other hand, 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's becoming a date of the time and we used it to say that we put a lot of sauce on fish, to actually hide the taste of a fish that wasn't very fresh, that called 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. That's it for today.

I hope you enjoyed this video. If you liked it, don't forget to give it a thumbs-up. Don't hesitate to let me know in the comments if there are any expressions you'd like me to explain and put into context. I wish you all a very, very nice day and I'll see you very, very soon.