Kids are so curious about everything, and even something as ordinary as an apple can turn into an engaging (and tasty) scientific observation for them. A few weeks ago, we visited a pumpkin patch and farm, where Surya realized that apples grew on trees. Who knew! I thought it was a great time to channel that amazement into an apple observation and discovery activity, where she could learn to describe an apple in French. While I would have loved nothing more than to take her apple-picking, the orchards were simply too far a drive for us. So, we decided to pick up a few apples from our neighbourhood supermarket for our experiment.
What’s an apple in french?
“Apple” in French is “une pomme“.
Apple tree – un pommier
Apple observation
Apples come in a variety of colours and sizes, which make them great subjects of observation.
Colour – couleur
To describe the colour of an apple, you can say:
The apple is…
La pomme est…
Since the word “pomme” is feminine, you have to make sure to use the adjective in the feminine form too.
Red – rouge (the same for both masculine and feminine)
Yellow – jaune (the same for both masculine and feminine)
Green – vert (masculine), verte (feminine)
Pink – rose (the same for both masculine and feminine)
Size – taille, calibre
To describe the size of an apple in French, you can point to one and say:
This apple is…
Cette pomme est…
Big – gros (masculine), grosse (feminine)
Small – petit (masculine), petite (feminine)
Using the feminine form of the adjective, your child can practice describing each apple in French as:
This apple is big.
Cette pomme est grosse.
This one is small.
Celle-ci est petite.
Appearance – apparence
To describe the outer part of the apple and practice some of the French colour and size vocabulary, you can encourage your child to pick one up and say:
Here’s a small red apple. Look how shiny and smooth it is!
Voici une grosse pomme rouge. Qu’elle est luisante et lisse !
Shiny – luisant (masculine), luisante (feminine)
Smooth – lisse (the same for both masculine and feminine)
Firm – ferme (the same for both masculine and feminine)
Apple taste testing
Taste – goût
Sweet – sucré (masculine), sucrée (feminine)
Tart – acidulé (masculine), acidulée (feminine)
Other characteristics
Crunchy – croquant (masculine), croquante (feminine)
Juicy – juteux (masculine), juteuse (feminine)
