Cockadoodle Doo or Cocorico?

 We stood in the middle of the road, having walked together 13 miles that day and Claudine grasped my forearm.

"Mais non! It doesn't make sense. It doesn't sound like that at all!" she insisted. 

This passionate response from my French friend came after she asked me what we say in America for the sound a rooster makes. 

Maybe I didn't sell it to her, I think, and I make a crowing sound like "Cock a doodle doo!"

"Non, it's cocorico. It sounds just like a rooster!" she insisted. 

"It sounds like a drink," I insisted. "I'll have a cocorico in Puerto rico."

We were both bent over laughing as we continued walking down the road, the sun shining on us after walking five and a half hours so far. We had started that morning in Figeac, France, in the Lot region. We'd left behind the more extreme mountain climbs in the Aude for rolling hills and homes built of bleached stone with carefully sculpted roof tiles. We planned to walk four days along one of the many trails that lead to El Camino de Santiago in Spain. In France, the routes are called Chemin de Saint Jacque de Compostelle 

On Tuesday we dropped the car in St. Cirq la Popie, our ending point, and we took the bus back to Figeac. We found a restaurant in Figeac, eating dinner at 8 p.m. When we opened the menu, we nearly fainted at the perfection. I had told Claudine on the bus that I hadn't eaten foie gras or duck since I'd been back in France. Then we searched for a restaurant that served foie gras. We ended up at La Puce a l'Oreille in Figeac. Starting with foie gras then moving on to magret de canard (duck). 

"If we eat foie gras for dinner every night, we'll gain many kilos before we get home," Claudine pointed out before taking a bite of the starter and pausing for the sheer pleasure of it in her mouth. 

If ever there was a meal fit for the word sublime, this was it.  The setting, the service, the food. Surely we were ready for our hike the next day. 

The jovial host at the B&B saw us off after coffee and croissants. We stopped at a bakery for a baquette sandwich -- jambon sec, butter and lettuce. The bakery server cut the sandwich in two so we could share it later. And, voila, we were off. The trail would be 21 kilometers from the Figeac to Corn. 

Corn is a strange name for a town, but in France, they don't call corn corn. They call it maïs with two syllables. A fairly steep climb took us out of Figeac, but the entire hike, 15 miles, we only climbed about 1400 feet, which we struggle up in 45 minutes leaving our town.

Hiking long distances in France is very different from the United States. We don't carry tents and sleeping bags. We don't pack our bags with beans and rice to eat over a fire. We walk from town to town and sleep in a gites or B and B. We have dinner in a restaurant or at the host's table. 

After a few hours of hiking, we ventured through the village Faycelles and stopped to take pictures of the irises lining stone steps. At the top, we stopped for coffee and a panoramic view of the valley and river below. 

Two hours later in Beduer, we walked into town to find that the only store near the trail had closed at 12:30. We couldn't buy drinks for lunch, but we had our water and our sandwich. Claudine had brought along two pain au chocolat from the day before, so we had those for dessert as we sat at a concrete table by the cathedral with a view of a nearby chateau. We chatted with hikers from Canada, from Nantes and Orleans France. Most of the hikers on this trail are from France. 

During our six hour hike, Claudine had declared it "French speaking only" so that I could practice my French. Walking and following trail markers and trying to speak only French, it was a challenge. But by the end of the day, I wondered if I'd be able to speak English when I called Earl later. 

We walked a few kilometers outside of Corn to our BnB, thinking we would never get there. Stopping to take pictures of a field of poppies. A climb up to the BnB and we were greeted by a giant white Great Pyrenees dog with deep woofs.

Finally, after 15 miles, 22 kilometers, we could take our shoes off our tired feet. Rinse the salt of sweat from our bodies and enjoy another great meal, this time of cucumber in creme fraiche for starters then couscous with lamb and carrots followed by gelato. 

Dreaming of France -- Pronouncing French

hank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Last weekend, as my husband and I perused the map of new French regions, I pointed to the area we planned to move. It had been known as Languedoc-Roussillon. Now the area, combined with Mid-Pyrenees would be known as Occitanie.

"How do you pronounce it?" my husband asked. 

"I don't know," I replied. I'm okay at speaking French that I've heard, but I'm awful at reading words and figuring out how to pronounce them. I guessed that it would probably rhyme with Punxsutawney, like the groundhog in Pennsylvania. Occitanie = Ocksutawney.

I decided I'd better check it out. So I searched, on my phone for how to pronounce Occitanie in French. 

The website Forvo.com popped up. It's an app, so I can download it on my phone for $2.99, and after hearing how to pronounce Occitanie, I'd better. It's pronounced Ock-sit-uh-knee with the emphasis on sit. 

Here, don't try to imagine how to say it, go to Forov and choose a female or male voice to pronounce it for you. Forvo pronounciation of Occitanie. 

We looked up some other words, and my husband asked to see how to pronounce his name in French. 

Now we've been to France many times, and he has heard our French friends massacre his name. There just isn't an easy way to say Earl in French. 

When I searched on Forvo, it changed the language to English rather than French, and even some American. 

I went back to searching for the pronunciation of areas within the region where we plan to move. One of those is Herault. 

I typed it into Forvo.com and the pronuncation sounded a lot like Earl, maybe a bit more like Errol. "That's how I'll spell my name from now on so people can pronounce it," he said. 

Here's Forvo's take on Herault. 

Guess I'd better get busy practicing my French skills.

I have a student from Senegal, where they speak French, and I asked him how he would say "Earl." He laughed and agreed that it would be a very hard name for the French. But I don't feel too bad, because last week when we were reading a story in class, he read latté as lat. 

I said, "Wait! That's a French word."

He went back and read it with French pronunciation and agreed, "Latté is a French word."

Are you good at reading French words and pronouncing them? How do you get better?

Dreaming of France -- Learning French

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

I minored in French in college, so I have a basic grasp of French and I can make myself understood for most things. I have a harder time understanding what people say to me in return. And I still haven't figured out all of those "y" and "en" and "ce" and "ci" in the middle of a sentence.
With hopes of someday moving to France, I figured I'd better get serious about learning French better. That's why I downloaded Duolingo to my iPhone. It's also available on the computer. And it's free.

Before I started on duolingo, I had a chance to take a test to see how much French I already knew. Then it bumped me past those lessons. Believe me, there are still plenty of lessons to go.
The app shows the challenges I have completed in gold. Ones I'm working on are in color, and the future ones, ones I'm not ready for, are in a pale black and white.

I immediately recognized that the program uses a method similar to the Montessori three-part naming lesson. With the three-part naming lessons, new words or things are introduced, then the student is asked to pick out the word when they here it, then finally the students are shown the thing and asked to come up with the word on their own.

Duolingo mixes up the language lessons. Some of them are as simple as repeating a short sentence by pressing the microphone button.
Another lesson gives a sentence in French or English and asks you to translate it. Choose from a mix of words below. A touch of a finger to the word moves it up underneath the original sentence.

A more challenging lesson has the sentence in French or English and you have to type the words that translate it.

The hardest lesson for me is the one where duolingo says a sentence or phrase in French and I have to write it in French. There's a turtle button that repeats the phrase slowly, but it's still a challenge for me.

I had thought that I would be able to quickly master French and move on to Italian, but I was wrong. I still have so much to learn, and the program returns to some of the previous lessons, so I have to return to them and practice them.

 I have plenty of lesson left in adverbs alone. The program also gives lots of encouragement and reminders to get you working. Hopefully by the time I get to France, I'll be speaking French, and understanding it, better. 

Thanks for playing along today. I hope you'll visit each other's blogs too so you can enjoy other bits and pieces of France.