You are in the right place to discover everything you ever wanted to know about the funny French idiom "Mon petit doigt m'a dit". This include a complete explanation of what it is and how to use it in everyday life with an audio example. But, we also added super useful stuff like dialogue example, slow pronunciation audio, literal meaning and more!
Translation : A little bird told me
Literal meaning : My little finger told me
Register : Informal - Funny
Slow
Normal
IPA : / mɔ̃ pəti dwa ma di /
Why? Why would your little finger say anything to you? I know it sounds crazy, but there is actually a (surprisingly) logical explanation.
Go wash your hands first. Once done, try to put each of your fingers into your ear. Huh... you can't right? Oh wait! It works with the little finger!
Our little finger seems to be the only one able to "visit" our ear. This expression is based on that fact, imagining that the little finger is a private confidant for the ear, the only one who secretly comes and talks to it.
So, this expression means that we have a secret source of information, but we don't want to reveal it. Then we say it's coming from our little finger instead.
Next time someone asks you: "But wait, how could you know that? Who told you?" simply reply: " C'est mon petit doigt qui me l'a dit" (It's my little finger who told me).
But you can also use it in an active sentence like: "Mon petit doigt m'a dit qu'il va pleuvoir demain" (My little finger told me it will rain tomorrow).
Plot twist: your little finger sucks at predicting weather, you just used your phone, but it's much funnier this way...
You might think "Come on, you invented this whole little finger into the ear story". And I know it sounds weird...
But here is something for you: in French the little finger is called "Auriculaire". And this name is coming from the latin "Auris" (Ear) and the suffix -culus (Small).
Mind-blowing right? I don't know for you, but that's for this kind of useless piece of information that I love learning languages...
↓ Example in a story with English translation ↓
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