Sing along: Farm animals in French

This song is about a farmer called Mathurin and the different animals that he keeps on his farm – la ferme.

You can practise the words for animals in French with this fun song.

Did you know?

Did you know that animal sounds in French are different to animal sounds in English?

For example, in English pigs make an ‘oink, oink’ sound, but in French they say groin groin.

Did the song sound familiar? Watch the video again and see how many animals and sounds you can spot.

Here are the words for different animals and birds you might find on a farm:

Which animals are on the farm?

To say ‘there is’ or ‘there are’ in French, you say il y a.

Il y a – There is/there are

Il y a un cochon – There is a pig

Il y a deux cochons – There are two pigs

To ask ‘how many’ in French, you say Combien de … y a-t-il ?

Combien de cochons y a-t-il ? – How many pigs are there?

Il y a trois cochons – There are three pigs

Il y a des centaines de cochons – There are hundreds of pigs

Centaines comes from the word cent in French, which means 100.

Possession means when something belongs to someone.

To show that something belongs to someone in English, we use an apostrophe followed by s, so we say Old MacDonald’s farm.

To show that something belongs to someone in French, we use the word de after the noun.

So you would say:

le chien de Michael – Michael’s dog

le chat de Sarah – Sarah’s cat

If someone’s name begins with a vowel – a, e, i, o, u – or the letter h, you would say d’ instead of de

la ferme d’André – André's farm

le chien d’Alec – Alec’s dog

le chat d’Hugo – Hugo’s cat