Le troisième jour de Noël, mon amour m’a donné : trois Faverolles…
(On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: three French hens…)
trois Faverolles
(three French hens)
1. Faverolles – you’d think “French hen” would just be… well, “hen” (une poule), in French. But you’d be wrong! I looked them up. It turns out they are a breed of hen called a Faverolle, taking its name from a village in the North of France.
Bet you’re glad you know that! Isn’t life richer?
Chances of someone French who’s not a chicken breeder knowing this are somewhat slim, so by all means substitute “trois poules françaises” if you don’t want to come across as too much of smarty pants. I’ve stuck with Faverolles.
More: 2nd Day | The 12 Days of Christmas | 4th 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.