With French proverbs, c'est en forgeant qu'on devient forgeron!*

If you need inspiration for an arduous task, the French will tell you “you need to break the kernel to get the almond” (Il faut casser le noyau pour avoir l'amande). In other words, “no pain, no gain.”

101 French Proverbs takes the mystery out of common French expressions like this one and explains their meanings in context. On the MP3 disk, native speakers read each of the 101 proverbs and dialogues that place them in context, so you can hear how French sounds and practice what you have learned.

Find out what French speakers really mean when they say . . .

• La nuit, tous les chats sont gris. = At night, all cats are gray.
• Il vaut mieux s'adresser à Dieu qu'à ses saints. = Better to deal with God than with his saints.
• On ne marie pas les poules avec les renards. = One does not wed hens with foxes.
• Il n'est si méchant pot qui ne trouve son couvercle. = There is no jar so wretched that it cannot find its lid.
• Qui terre a, guerre a. = Who has land, has war.

*It is by forging and forging again that one becomes a blacksmith. (= Practice makes perfect.)