LÂCHER LES BASKETS
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Literally: Let go off the baskets (remember: baskets are sneakers in French)
Best equivalent: Give a break (to someone)
Lâche-moi les baskets, for example, would be “give me a break,” or “get off my back.”
See you tomorrow for the letter M, part of the A to Z challenge!
Evelyne Holingue 
That’s interesting. I like expressions like that, because sometimes people need to be told to give a guy a break.
Agree:)
I already blogged about my early funny mistakes when I left France. “Basket” is one of these words that puzzled everyone around me when I used them. Once, my preschool daughter (she was only two and we had been in the US for less than a year) asked her teacher “to tie her baskets.” The teacher had no idea that the French called their sneakers baskets. She laughed when I told her that my daughter wanted some help to tie her sneakers. Two years ago, I blogged about these little French and American words that take a whole different meaning, whether used in France or the USA. They keep popping in, particularly in France, now so eager to use American words in their daily life 🙂
Thank you, Dan for another visit.
I think I remember that post. The woman (Ellen) I follow in the UK blogs about the different meaning of “English” expressions.
I should look her up. The differences are maybe more subtle between the USA and the UK but there exist.
Bonjour Evelyne. C’est drôle, cette expression. Je me demande si c’est très familier ?
Oh, oui! Il y a d’autres façons de demander à quelqu’un de nous laisser tranquille, parfois plus vulgaires 🙂
Mais celle ci est toujours d’actualité.
J’espère que tout va bien de votre côté.
Merci Evelyne, j’apprends quelque chose de nouveau chaque jour sur votre site! 🙂
Alors je suis contente. Si on habitait près l’une de l’autre je vous donnerais des cours 🙂
I bet if they’d taught this in school, I’d remember my French a LOT better 😀
Ha ha! I agree that these are more fun that the conjugaisons:)
I would have loved to learn American expressions when I took mandatory English in France rather than British history that was basically lots of fights with France:)
I could see that if you were holding onto someone’s sneakers, it would slow him down, hold him back. I like it. –Curt
It’s another funny and a little odd one. But I think it means what you say. Get off my back is pretty much the same too.
Tomorrow will show how France and the USA almost agree 🙂
Hi Evelyne – this is funny … I too laughed – I wrote a post about sneakers … because of course we Brits don’t (didn’t perhaps!) call them sneakers … but now I could use baskets here … I’ve used trombone – when I wanted a paper clip – funny old life … wonderful to hear you speak the phrases – cheers Hilary
Paper clips are also trombones in France!
Now I need to read your post about sneakers!