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You are going to discover everything you ever wanted to know about the basic idiom “Tu me casses les pieds”.
To be clear, it includes a complete guide of what it is and how you can use it in everyday life with an audio example. And also the cool informations we added like slow pronunciation audio, dialogue example, literal meaning and more!
If you want, you will find our others idioms pages on this page and the directory of all our French words content on this page. Have fun!
Slow pronunciation
Normal pronunciation
Sometimes you might get so annoyed by someone that you feel like a physical pain in your body. Like if someone was crushing a part of you… your feet, for example! Isn’t it annoying (and painful) to have someone crushing your feet?
Every time someone annoys you with their behavior, their words or even just their presence you can say: “Tu me casses les pieds“. For a more complete sentence, you can add before “Arrête !” (Stop!) or “Ça suffit !” (That’s enough!)
This is not something very nice to say, but it’s actually one of the nicest ways to express this feeling in French. The softest would be “Tu m’embêtes” (You annoy me).
But as you probably guessed, you should be careful with this one anyway and avoid using it in a formal situation, at work for example.
This structure is super powerful because you can adapt it to infinite situations. To be more precise, you can play with three things: the angriness level, the vulgarity level and reason why you are angry,
To increase the angriness level, you can replace the verb “casser” by “briser” (to crush) or “péter” (“to break” but more violent)
Then, if you are really pissed and don’t care about being vulgar you can replace “Pieds” (Feet) by “Couilles” (Balls).
Finally, if you want to be more precise about why you are pissed, you can replace “pieds” (feet) by the part of your body that is concerned. For example, if someone is talking loudly, you can say: “Tu me casses les oreilles.” (You are breaking my ears.)
Basically, you just have to start with “Tu me casses…” (You are breaking my…) and be creative.