I'm looking for the French idiom equivalent to "Dear Me". It bothers me to no end that I can't find one that is accurate enough even though I'm French...
What I found but not actually satisfied with :
- Mon Dieu
- This search on WordReference which all express surprise, but not in the sense that "Dear me" does IMHO.
And that's pretty much all.
As several answers pointed out, idioms translation rely heavily on context.
In my particular case, it's in response to a comment eliciting surprise with a mild amount of discomfort/horror
As an example:
A friend tells you how his friend got his fingers stuck in a door. your answer being "Dear Me !"