Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Songs to Teach Children French

If your children love songs as much as my children do, then using songs is a great approach to help your children learn French. I found this site, Mama Lisa's World, that has a lot of great songs. It has the MP3 of the songs, plus English and French versions of both. Some even have game instructions. This one is my daughter's favorite and the original text and MP3 can be found at this link:
À cheval sur mon bidet
Riding My Horsey
Chanson pour sauter sur les genoux
(French)
Children's Song
(English)

À cheval sur mon bidet*(1)
Quand il trotte, il est parfait
Au pas, au pas, au pas, (2)
Au trot, au trot, au trot (3)
Au galop, au galop, au galop !(4)

Riding my horsey,
When he trots, he is perfect,
At a walk, at a walk, at a walk,
At a trot, at a trot, at a trot,
At a gallop, at a gallop, at a gallop.
Game Instructions


(1) Sit the child on your lap, holding his/her hands
and make him/her bounce as if riding a horse.

(2) Make a slow beat with your legs,

(3) Speed up the rhythm,

(4) End by a gallop!



2 comments:

Sophie said...

Ooh, likey!!

And I love that little tune - especially the words. My mum sings it to DD, however she uses older words that I'm not horrendously keen on:

A cheval gendarme
A pieds bourguignons
Allons a la guerre
Tous les autres ils vont
Au pas, au pas
Au trot, au trot
Au galop, au galop, au galop!

A fun singing game for DD, and apparently quite old traditional lyrics, but... no, alternative wording much nicer :)

Yvonne Crawford said...

Oh I like that version too! My daughter is so into horses, anything to do with horses she just loves! I'm going to show her your lyrics too. Thanks for posting them!!