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WHEN YOU HAVE LINGUISTICALLY GROWN OUT OF SAYING ‘UN PETIT PEU’ HERE ARE SOME ALTERNATIVES When you live in France and are keen to improve your language skills, every day counts as a school

day if you stay alert and keep your ears (_oreilles_) open to nouveautés (_new things_) – additions to your internal dictionary that might be useful one day, especially when it comes to

moving beyond the basics into a more casual and chatty style of communication. Back in school, pretty much anyone with even the most basic linguistic ability and word retention powers was

able to describe a small amount of something as “_un petit peu_”. Spend some time in France, however, and as you go along you pick up alternative, more descriptive ways to ask for “a

smidgen” of this or “a touch” that. READ MORE: FRENCH LANGUAGE TIP - MAKING THINGS SOUND MINI, DINKY OR CUTE MAGHREB ARABIC WORD USED IN FRENCH In the kitchen or at the dining table, you

might hear people talking about how they added a little something to perfect the taste of a recipe. For example – and this one came to my attention only very recently – someone said they had

added “_un chouïa de sucre_” – to their dish. Pronounced _shoo-ee-ya_, it comes from the Maghreb Arabic word _suya_, which first appeared in France in 1866 thanks to French repatriates from

Algeria, and you may find alternative spellings in written form including _chouya_ or _chouilla_. Another word to describe a dash or hint of something is _un soupçon_, familiar to the

Anglophone ear and literally meaning a hint or suspicion. _Soupçon _can also mean “a shred”, such as in the context of evidence, ie: “_Le document ne contient pas le moindre soupçon de

preuve_” – The document does not contain one shred of evidence. As for a pinch of salt – that's _une pincée_. RELATED ARTICLES A DOZEN FRENCH IDIOMS TO IMPROVE YOUR LANGUAGE SKILLS

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