Ce n'est pas ma spécialité.

English Translation

It’s not my cup of tea.

Just a comment about the translation. “It’s not my cup of tea” has a somewhat different nuance than the French translation; “it’s not my specialty.” The cup of tea sentence has more to do with personal preference, liking, or taste. It also has a much different level of formality. The cup of tea remark is very informal. If my boss asked me to do something, I could reply, “It’s not my specialty.” I might get fired if I said, “It’s not my cup of tea.” Speaking here from Midwest USA, I’m not an expert on British English or otherwise.

As a Briton, my use of this phrase is the same as yours, i.e. it always refers to preference, liking or taste, so I would say that British English and American English have the same usage.

Whilst I have never heard it used to refer to a speciality, the Wiktionary page does suggest this as a possibility, but provides no quotations or similar to justify or demonstrate this -
someone’s cup of tea - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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I’m seeing the mistakes in Tatoeba repeated in Reverso.net. I wonder where Wiktionary is getting its information?

Anyway, i thought a lot about it. If “cup of tea” were used in regard to a skill, the implication would be that it was a good fit for that person or made them happy. Not just that they were good at it.

There are definitely things that I am good at that I prefer not to do, and no one would call it my cup of tea unless it was a massive joke. Thank you for the reply and the discussion.

Edit: I should add that I know that Wikipedia is edited by users/ readers. I have edited articles myself. Still, whoever put that in got it from somewhere. There are no citations in that article.

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zzcguns,

The page you provided had these French translations:

  • tasse de thé, truc (literally “(one’s) thing”)

I wonder if any French speakers would say something about the cup of tea statement?

I’m not a French speaker (i.e. native or similar), but I have often used the phrase “Ce n’est pas mon truc” to convey the same idea as “It’s not my thing / it’s not my cup of tea / Das ist nicht mein Ding etc.”

Searching for “mon truc” on Tatoeba brings up the following list, which includes English translations related to “cup of tea” -
Sentences with: mon truc - Tatoeba

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I’ve just noted that the original French sentence on Tatoeba is from the contributor sacredceltic -
Ce n’est pas ma spécialité. - French example sentence - Tatoeba

The history is a little confusing, but if the linking of these two sentences was by sacredceltic, then I would consider it to be extremely unreliable.

I believe that you are aware of this individual, as you once posted “sacredceltic strikes again?” :joy:

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I don’t have much to add here…

That’s how I use it too. (never to talk about my skills or lack thereof in a specific domain), so I don’t think the French translation is very good here.

Agreed, I think that “Ce n’est pas mon truc.” would be a better translation.

You could also translate it literally:

“Ce n’est pas ma tasse de thé.” means the same thing in French as it does in English.

It’s not very common though, maybe even considered old-fashioned at this point.

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