Why do I need to know faire le canard? 

Because who said romance is dead? 

What does it mean?

Faire le canard, pronounced fair luh can-are, is a term popularised via French reality TV which doesn’t really have an English translation. 

Some of our younger readers may understand it to mean behaving like a ‘simp’ or a ‘shweff’. 

But to explain faire le canard to the rest of you, the expression is used to describe someone, usually a man, who adopts overly servile or desperate measures in an attempt to court someone. It is often used to describe someone who drops plans with friends to spend time with a partner or other romantic interest. 

You can also jouer le canard and être canard. 

The word canard, means ‘duck’. To understand the expression, imagine a new-born duckling incessantly following its mother around the farm yard – that is the inter-species Freudian imagery that this phrase evokes to portray someone pursuing a romantic partner. 

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This slang phrase is particularly common in and around Marseille, but is widely understood by anyone under the age of 35. 

You should not confuse faire le canard with faire un canard. The latter phrase is typically used to describe what a musician who plays a wrong note on a musical instrument. 

Use it like this

Désolé les gars, je fais le canard ce soir – Sorry guys, I am attending to a romantic interest this evening

Vas-y canard – Go on then, lover-boy

J’avoue j’ai joué le canard pour avoir son 06 – I admit that I bent over backwards to get his/her phone number

Le canard fait tout ce que la fille lui dit – This guy did everything that the girl told him 

Synonyms 

The following expressions are all considered to be informal and more appropriate for spoken conversations between friends rather than sincere or professional communication: 

Faire le lover  

Faire le toutou 

Faire le bolosse 

Faire le David Beckham (this one is less common, but does appear on the prestigious dictionary of urban slang, weshipedia).