You are going to find out all the things you ever wanted to know about the funny French idiom "Tomber dans les pommes". To be more precise, this includes a complete explanation of what it is and how you can use it in a normal conversation with an audio example. Plus, we also added some useful stuff like synonym, slow pronunciation audio, dialogue example and more!
Translation : To faint
Literal meaning : To fall in apples
Register : Informal - Funny
Slow
Normal
IPA : / tɔ̃be dɑ̃ le pɔm /
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
Je crois que je vais tomber dans les pommes
I think I'm going to fall in apples*
Seriously?
Oui, je ne me sens pas bien
Yes, I don't feel good
Learn French with Audio Stories
Learn French the easy way with our French - English
parallel texts with slow French audio
Start Learning 
