Rouge comme un coquelicot is a French expression describing either a deeply blushing person or someone who is red with anger. A favorite French wildflower, the coquelicot was one the first flowers to spring up on graves of soldiers buried in northern France and Belgium during World War I. The small, red species of poppies quickly became an international symbol of remembrance after being immortalized in the 1915 poem In Flanders Fields written by Canadian military doctor, John McCrae. The red poppy is also a favorite of pollinating insects. The poppy field above was photographed by our friend Sylvia, near her village in the Gard.
Vocabulary
un coquelicot: poppy
un butineur: a nectar gatherer; a browser; a crawler (as in a search engine indexer)
un pollinisateur: a pollinator
éclatant(e): brillant, bright
champêtre: country, rural, open-air
une fleur champêtre: a wildflower
Reading in French is fun!
Immerse yourself or your child for a moment in a French children's story! Reading an illustrated children's story in a foreign language is a great way to jump-start the acquisition of a second language. For starters we suggest a charming conte, Le Lapin et la lune, écrit par Marianne Lecron, illustré par P. B. Lecron. It and its English version, The Rabbit and the Moon, are both available on worldwide Amazon sites.
For more posts about poppies:
A French Education: THE ARABLE WEED
A French Education: COCORICO
A French Education: CORSICA OF COURSE
©2018 P. B. Lecron
