101 French Idioms - Jean-Marie Cassagne

When I lived in Cairo, I often used to watch the local television news bulletin in English. Rain is a pretty rare occurrence there, so one evening the Egyptian newsreader thought that a particularly heavy downpour was worth commenting on. He decided to go for a familiar colloquial expression to appear like a native speaker, and came out with 'It's been raining dogs and cats.' It sounded so strange switching the order of the animals around, and next day at the English school where I taught everyone was have a chuckle over it. It is a difficult thing, getting colloquial language right in any language other than your own. I certainly don't remember being taught ...