What does the French proverb impossible n'est pas français mean? Click the link above to learn all about it, and then come back here to share your thoughts.
More: French expressions
More: French expressions
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That was a light bulb moment. Merci. I used to work with a Frenchman. Whenever I said impossible in French he would always reply that impossible was not a French word. He had me really confused as I knew that it was.
Since the English word “Impossible” came from Middle French to Middle English with (I assume)the Norman invasion, wouldn’t the phrase “Impossible is not an English word!” make more logical sense?
J’ai toujours entendu dire que “impossible n’est pas francais ” a ete cree par Napoleon . Vrai ou faux ???
A great proverb, but in my experience of living in Paris for a couple years, if the average Parisian hasn’t done it or heard of it, it is “impossible!” and cannot be done.
The expression is frequently associated with Bonaparte, just as Cambronne is associated with certain word, but unclear whether Bonaparte started the expression. The expression is sometimes used in advertisements and I recall seeing one with Napo’s image.
This is a new expression for me and I love it! Thanks, Laura.
hi, laura. thats a great insight into the french mentality.
I always thought that the expression was,
” Si ce n’est pas impossible, ce n’est pas francais!” I learned something, but I like my version better than yours!
je n’ai jamais entedu l’expresion mais des que je l’ai vu j’ai compris ce que cela veut dire.
Impossible n’est pas français
Encore une phrase célèbre dans la mémoire collective des Français! Pourtant, elle n’a pas été exactement prononcée ainsi; la lettre et l’esprit…
Jean Léonard, comte Le Marois, était un Normand de Bricquebec (où il vit le jour en 1776) dans la Manche; brave devenu général, il prit part aux guerres du Consulat et de l’Empire, mais resta dans l’ombre de plus grands que lui. Un jour, il « buta » sur un problème et crut bon de s’ouvrir à Napoléon de ce qu’il ne croyait pas possible de réaliser.
L’Empereur lui répondit dans une lettre : « Ce n’est pas possible, m’écrivez-vous : cela n’est pas français. »
La postérité retint seulement l’effet positif de la phrase, qui est devenue pour certains une composante du tempérament français.
Gilles Henry
Petit dictionnaire des expressions nées de l’histoire
Tallandier, 1993, p. 259
So in english it means that nothing is impossible for a frenchman ! we will always find a way to do it !
Very interesting. (I want to express my little Frech here)
Je suis anglaise et j’apprends francais.
Avant, j’ai pense c’est impossible d’apprendre et parler francais mais maintenant je comprends que “impossible n’est pas francias”.
Merci, Madame Lawless
“Impossible is not French” by Napoleon I !
evelyne
Bruno has reason, its coming from an imperative injunction of Bonaparte to a general saying :”je vous ai donné un ordre,vous me dites que c’est impossible,or,impossible n’est pas français et mon ordre sera exécuté!”
Anaogy with the american moot
“The failure is not an option”
Pardon, analogy.
To Robert : I have my own theory on purpose to the word attributed to Cambronne.
At the injunction “Rendez-vous”, he would have reply in english something as “You have to murder us” and the ponétic similarity make confusion with a french popular expression.
So as are making the historicals words.
A comment from a French guy…
The beauty of this expression is obviously the double-entendre. You can either take “pas français” as “not part of the French language” (meaning, the language in which the expression is written, which would translate in different languages as “is not English”, “no es Español”, etc.), or as “not a word for a Frenchman”. Interestingly, as a French native speaker and French citizen, I tend to “hear it” in its second sense, equating boldness with the French citizenry. I always wondered how Belgians, Swiss or Canadian French speaking natives thought about it and whether they ever used that expression.
This, in turn, introduces a nice level of irony. Modern French people tend to be viewed as quite fatalistic, pusillanimous and selfish – the usual French shrug being well known to countless visiting foreigners. But this phrase takes us back to a distant past where audacity and Frenchness were actually far from antinomic. Napoleon Bonaparte coined the term and is himself the epitomy of success through sheer audacity. French people use this beautiful expression quite often, still under the impression that we can genuinely be perceived as bold people. While most non French will disagree that this is the case, history demonstrates that French people have this capacity to surprise the World at large by their boldness and entrepreneurship, and I hope to live to the day when, again, “Impossible ne sera plus français.”
In the same vein, here are a few nice expressions:
La chance sourit aux audacieux
Il n’est pas nécessaire d’espérer pour entreprendre ni de réussir pour persévérer