What does the idiomatic French expression Métro, boulot, dodo mean? Click the link above to learn all about it, and then come back here to share your thoughts.
More: French expressions | Common French phrases
More: French expressions | Common French phrases
Comments
In English, “eat, sleep, work” is more common. In New York at least.
Bonjour! C’est drole et tres utile quand vous habitez au megopolice comme Moscou par example.
Merci!
ps. Il serait tres bien si votre explications aussi seriez en langue francais et anglais comme une double.
Merci encore une fois!
A useful expression, but where did it come from? According to my “prof” at La Catho in Paris, it was “born” during the strikes of 1968. One of the student leaders asked the owner of a bookshop in rue de Monsieur le Prince for something inspiring that he could add to a speech he was making to workers at the Renault factory to convince them to join the student srtikers.
The bookshop owner suggested a 1951 poem by Paul Bearn called “Couleurs d’usine”. The three words were part of a longer line: “metro, boulot, bistrot, megots, dodo, zero” but they were the ones that made their way onto countless walls the next day. The rest, as they say, is history.
“Le train train” comparable to the English ” same old, same old” serves somewhat the same purpose.
In English we might even say “the rat-race.”
There was a song by The Godfathers that captured this nicely: “Birth, School, Work, Death.”
I heard this expression from a French engineer that I worked with for several years off and on but she added à deux cent à l’heure, meaning 200 kph. That way it is more equivalent to our ‘rat race.’
“Eat, sleep, work” works well in England too or perhaps “Live to work, work to live”
Same sh**, different day, is how I’ve heard it.
‘same song, second verse,
could get better but gonna get worse”
was popular in the southern USA 20 years ago!
Decrit la nature parfois monotone de la routine de tous Les jours
I agree with geoh777. That’s how I’ve come to understand it: Same thing, different day. But I could see how that may express a monotony that the French don’t necessarily intend.
Ever since my promotion, it’s been nothing but métro, boulot, dodo!
Comment on dit “do do “? Je suis australienne et je ne sais pas ….doe doe ?dor dor? comme on dit dormer??
Je commence mon etude de le francais depuis 1974 et j’ai oublie beaucoupdes mots!
i like the idea that it came from a poem used in the strikes, its a clever quip to know when you cant speak much french!
love it ! oh the french and their sayings : )
“metro, boulot, bistrot, megots, dodo, zero”
C’est quoi, megots?
Je pense qu’un mégot est [en argot] un bout de cigarette ou de cigar qu’on a fumé.
Mégot –> Verbe Mégoter
Revendiquer / Ergoter à propos de choses sans intérêts.
I didn’t know that the french expression “métro, boulot, dodo” means, but at first time I met it in the song “Sos d’un terrien en détresse” of Gregory Lemarchal!
thank you!
I worked with a French engineer who used “métro, boulot, dodo” all the time but she added ‘à deux cent à l’heure.”
thank you so much for this topic… very useful. Please, keep adding.
Abbreviated from the last line a 1951 poem by Pierre Béarn, collected in Couleurs d’usine (Factory colors):
Au déboulé garçon pointe ton numéro
Pour gagner ainsi le salaire
D’un morne jour utilitaire
Métro, boulot, bistro, mégots, dodo, zéro
Literal translation:
Rush in boy punch your number
Thus to earn the salary
Of a dreary utilitarian day
Metro, work, bistro, cigs, sleep, zero
To read more about Pierre Bearn author of Metro Boulot Dodo go to:
Pierre Béarn : see http://pierrebearn.free.fr/pierrebd.htm
Its interesting. Putting those words together with such meaning sounds clever to me. It is important to learn more French expressions to enrich one’s understanding of the language.
sounds funny, life is more like the same all over the world…