French

I live in a small country near the sea. We used to be known for our cheese and our tulips, and maybe for our red light district and our open windows, later we became known for our drug policy (is there any) and our coffee shops.

I am not yet going to talk about our coffee shops and the tourists this brought but about the time when the Netherlands was still a stiff and quiet country. I know it was because I was already alive.

For culture we looked at France, Juliette Greco, Barbara, Gilbert Bécaud, Aznavour, Edith Piaf were house hold names and these singers were played on the radio. French was seen as a lot more important than English. Before I learned my first English words, I had learned French. The school I went to from age seven till twelve (and I hated it) taught French in the last two years. In the last year of that school my class learned French by singing. The two hours we had at the end of the afternoon we sang:

• Le coq est mort, le coq est mort

• Cocorico cocorico

• Sur le pont d’Avigon

• Alouette, gentile alouette

  
  And many more that I don’t remember right now.

So four more French words ( as I said in my first post it is good to learn something new…and French may not be new to me I did forget a lot,
I don’t ever speak French (which is another story).

Haan — — Coq— — Rooster

Dood —— Mort—— Dead

Zwaluw— —Alouette — — Swallow (the bird)

Brug— — Pont — — Bridge