Menu
Menu
Ready to find out everything you ever wanted to know about the funny French expression “Tomber dans les pommes”?
Including a complete definition of what it is and how you can use it in a conversation with an audio example. And because we want you to make progress in French, we also added useful informations like dialogue example, slow pronunciation audio, synonyms and more!
Finally, on this page you will find our others expressions pages and the complete directory of all our French words tutorials on this page. Wish you a good learning!
Slow pronunciation
Normal pronunciation
The literal meaning is:
This French idiom means “To faint” and is very popular in France, but its origin isn’t perfectly clear…
The most common explanation comes from George Sand’s usage of a very similar expression in a 1889 letter. She said: “être dans les pommes cuites” (Literally: To be in the cooked apples), probably as a reference to another French expression: “être cuit” (Literally: To be cooked) which means “To be very tired“.
Then with time it turned into “Tomber dans les pommes” (To fall in apples) when experiencing a sudden and violent (like a fall) tiredness: a.k.a. fainting.
If you are going to faint, you can use: “Je vais tomber dans les pommes !” (Literally: I’m going to fall in apples!). Or if you are telling the story of that time when you fainted: “Je suis tombé(e) dans les pommes” (Literally: I felt into apples)
When talking about someone else:
Dialogue audio
If you liked this page you will certainly love our free Telegram channel where we publish similar content everyday with audio and explanations, but also one new French Text with slow audio and English translation everyday!
Would you like to receive everyday a useful French lesson directly on your phone for free?
It’s free!