Just as we’re quiet as a mouse or blind as a bat in English, the French language is equally peppered with animal expressions. While some are unique (*avoir le cafard comes to mind), others are identical in meaning – just with a different animal to keep French learners on their toes!

Here are 11 of our favourites. See how many you already know.

Appeler un chat un chat
Translation: To call a cat a cat
Meaning: To call a spade a spade

Avoir le cafard
Translation: To have the cockroach
Meaning: To feel down/ be depressed

Avoir des fourmis dans les jambes
Translation: To have ants in one's legs
Meaning: To have pins and needles

Être une poule mouillée
Translation: To be a wet chicken
Meaning: To lack courage

Être muet comme une carpe
Translation: To be mute like a carp
Meaning: To be silent (or quiet as a mouse)

Être copains comme cochons
Translation: To be friends like pigs
Meaning: To get on very well

Avoir une faim de loup
Translation: To have a wolf's hunger
Meaning: To be starving

Avoir un chat dans la gorge
Translation: To have a cat in the throat
Meaning: To have a frog in the throat

Poser un lapin
Translation: To put a rabbit
Meaning: To stand somebody up

Il pleut comme vache qui pisse
Translation: It’s raining like a peeing cow
Meaning: It’s raining cats and dogs
*Not for polite conversation!

Être myope comme une taupe
Translation: To be short-sighted as a mole
Meaning: To be as blind as a bat

* to feel down/ blue (literal translation: ‘to have the cockroach’)

11 French animal expressions