You are in the right place to learn everything you have to know about the basic idiom "J'ai du pain sur la planche". It includes a detailed explanation of what it is and how to use it in everyday life with an audio example. And that's not all, we also added some useful things like dialogue example, literal meaning, slow pronunciation audio 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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