Le dixième jour de Noël, mon amour m’a donné : dix seigneurs sauteurs…
(On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: ten lords a-leaping…)
What? A phone call? For me? Hello… Mr Cowell?
dix seigneurs sautant
(ten lords a-leaping)
1. un seigneur (a lord, or Lord) – see, I said Lord of the Rings would come in handy again.
2. sauteurs (leapers/jumpers) so again, this isn’t quite “leaping”, it’s more like “Lords that leap” but sautant wouldn’t work as we have already discovered. We could have used à ressort (“on springs”), an expression that brings to mind toys on springs and feels very festive but is harder to sing. By the way, “sautéed potatoes” are called this way because they’re supposed to tossed as they’re cooked to stop them from sticking to the pan.
Hmmm… maybe I should apply for Master Chef too…
More: 9th Day | The 12 Days of Christmas | 11th Day
Author info
[Follow on Twitter: @gruffdavies] Despite the very Welsh name, Gruff is actually half French. Nowadays, he's a tech entrepreneur (and some-time novelist) but he used to be a physicist at Imperial College before getting hooked on inventing things. He has a special interest in language learning, speaks five languages to varying degrees of fluency and he often blogs about language learning, science, and technology. As well as co-founding Kwiziq, he is the author the Amazon best-selling SF thriller, The Looking Glass Club and the inventor of the Exertris gaming exercise-bike and Pidgin, a free online tool that makes drawing flow charts and relationship diagrams as quick and easy as describing them in pidgin English.
Laura is a French expert and Kwiziq's Head of Quality Control. Online educator since '99, Laura is passionate about language, travel, and cooking. She's American by birth and a permanent ex-pat by choice - freelancing made it possible for her to travel extensively and live in several countries before settling permanently in Guadeloupe. Laura is the author of Lawless French, Lawless Spanish, and other websites and books on French, Spanish, Italian, English, and vegetarianism. She spends most of her spare time reading, playing with food, and enjoying water sports.