Are you ready to discover everything you ever wanted to know about the basic French idiom "J'ai les dents longues"? To be more precise, this includes a complete guide of what it is and how to use it in a dialogue with an audio example. Plus, we also added some useful things like slow pronunciation audio, dialogue example, synonym and more!
Translation : I am ambitious
Literal meaning : I have long teeth
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IPA : / ʒe le dɑ̃ lɔ̃ːɡ /
This idiom used to mean: "To be hungry" which seems logical, but with time it ended up meaning: "To be ambitious".
Why? Because teeth are a symbol of strength / aggressivity and because "hunger" is an image for ambition. Just like in English we have: "I'm hungry for the power".
So having "long teeth" represents having a lot of ambition and having a shark mindset: ready to do anything to succeed.
You can use it about yourself "Je ferai de grandes choses, j'ai les dents longues." (I will achieve big things, I'm ambitious.)
But also about someone else: "Ça ne m'étonne pas, il a les dents longues." (I'm not surprised, he is ambitious.)
We have an even more extreme expression: "Avoir les dents qui rayent le parquet" which means "To have teeth (so long that they are) scratching the floor".
That's a lot of ambition!
↓ Example in a story with translation ↓
Finally, let's see an example in a parallel story with slow audio.
Mon plus grand rêve
My biggest dream
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