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You are going to find out all the things you want to know about the basic French expression “J’ai les dents longues”.
Are included a full guide of what it is and how to use it in everyday life with an audio example. Along with the useful stuff we sprinkled like dialogue example, slow pronunciation audio, synonyms and more!
Oh and if you are interested, you can find more of these expressions tutorials on this page plus the directory of all our French words pages on this page. Ready to learn? C’est parti ! (Let’s go!)
Slow pronunciation
Normal pronunciation
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!
Dialogue audio
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