Yesterday we looked at three uses of the French verb virer:
- virer fou
- virer au vert
- virer à droite
Tu dois faire quelque chose, sinon tu vas virer folle.
You have to do something, otherwise you’ll go crazy.
Mon pied a viré au vert.
My foot turned green.
J’ai pogné un ticket parce que j’ai viré à droite sur une rouge.
I got stuck with a ticket because I turned right on a red.
But we’re not finished with virer yet because Benoît’s comment yesterday made me realise there are a few more good expressions using virer to learn.
Let’s add these expressions then to your knowledge of virer:
- virer sur le côté
- virer sur le top
- virer une brosse
You see that truck in the image? It’s flipped over on the side. We can say:
Le camion a viré sur le côté.
The truck flipped over on the side.
Another expression that immediately comes to mind now is virer sur le top. If a car had completely flipped over and landed on its roof, we might say:
Le char était complètement viré sur le top.
The car was completely flipped over on the top.
Remember how sur le often sounds in colloquial language? Like sul. It’s an informally contracted form of sur le.
Le camion a viré sul côté.
Le char était viré sul top.
Hmm, wonder how that truck flipped over sur le côté? Let’s hope it had nothing to do with drinking and driving…
A few posts ago we saw that the expression être chaud is one way to describe the state of being drunk. But to get to that state in the first place, you have to virer une brosse:
virer une brosse
to get drunk
to get loaded
to get wasted
After you go and virer une brosse, you become chaud.
J’ai viré une brosse au bar pis j’étais trop chaud pour conduire.
I got drunk at the bar and I was too drunk to drive.
Si t’as assez d’argent pour aller virer une brosse, t’as assez d’argent pour un taxi.
If you’ve got enough money to go out and get drunk, you’ve got enough money for a taxi.
So here’s everything you now know about the verb virer:
virer fou
virer folle
to go crazy
virer au vert
virer au jaune
virer au noir
to turn green
to turn yellow
to turn black
virer à droite
virer à gauche
to turn right
to turn left
virer sur le côté
to flip over on the side
virer sur le top
to flip over on the top
virer une brosse
to get drunk
Hold on, not finished just yet.
The expression virer sur le top has a few more uses than just the one above.
Quand j’ai appris la nouvelle, j’ai complètement viré sur le top.
When I heard the news, I totally flipped out (in anger).
Je vire sur le top pour un sac de chips.
I always go crazy for a bag of chips (because I like chips so much).
Faut être viré sur le top pour faire ça.
Ya gotta be totally crazy to do that.
So virer sur le top means to flip upsidedown, both literally and as an emotion.
Oh, just one more thing…
Virer une brosse can also be said as prendre une brosse.
That’s it!
