Faire la queue = To queue [US: to be / stand in line]

Posted by Aurélie Drouard

In: Level A2, Idioms, Idiomatic Usage, and Structures, Idiotismes avec faire

Questions: 5

Look at these sentences:

Nous avons fait la queue toute la nuit pour ces billets.
We queued all night for these tickets.

Je déteste faire la queue au supermarché
I hate queueing at the supermarket

Luc fait la queue au distributeur de billets
Luc is queueing at the ATM

Tu ne fais pas souvent la queue.
You don't queue often.

In French "to queue" or "to line up" becomes "faire la queue"

You cannot say 'je queue' nor 'je ligne'

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Mme

Kwiziq community member

13 May 2018

1 reply

Is this only for the literal action or can it be used figuratively as well? (such as someone who's in line for the throne.)

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Cécile

Kwiziq language super star

14 May 2018

14/05/18

Hi Mme,

No you cannot use 'Faire la queue' figuratively for 'in line for the throne'.

In French you would say :

"L'héritier (heir) dans l'ordre de succession au trône britannique est Charles,le prince de Galles. L'héritier apparent est William, le duc de Cambridge, et l'héritier en ligne est le Prince George, son fils."

Hope this helps!

 

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Doraida

Kwiziq community member

16 June 2016

2 replies

Nous avons fait la queue toute la nuit pour ses billets ? "ses" or "ces"

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Aurélie

Kwiziq language super star

17 June 2016

17/06/16

Bonjour Doraida ! Indeed, here it should be "ces" (these) and not "ses" (his/her)! Thank you for spotting this typo, it's now been fixed :) Merci et à bientôt !

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Nick

Kwiziq community member

23 November 2016

23/11/16

Couldn't it have been 'ses' too, if they (all) had been waiting all night for someone's tickets?

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