You are going to learn all the things you need to know about the basic French expression "J'ai du pain sur la planche". It includes a full guide of what it is and how to use it in a normal conversation with an audio example.Additionally, we also added some useful stuff like dialogue example, slow pronunciation audio, literal meaning and more!
Translation : I have a lot to do
Literal meaning : I have bread on the board
Register : Informal - Basic
Slow
Normal
IPA : / ʒe dy pɛ̃ syʁ la plɑ̃ːʃ /
Finally! A French idiom with bread! But where is it coming from and why does it mean: "To have a lot of work"?
Few centuries ago, it meant "To have a lot of resources" and it was a sign of prosperity/capacity to survive.
But weirdly, with time it became a way to say "I have a lot to do". Just like every morning, the baker sees all the uncooked bread on the board as a sign of the hard work he still has to accomplish.
Whenever someone asks you if you are available for something, but you can't because you have a lot of things to do. You can say: "Je ne peux pas, j'ai du pain sur la planche". (I can't, I have some bread on the board)
No, you can't say "J'ai des baguettes sur la planche" sorry.
↓ Example in a story with French audio ↓
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