First of all, sorry for only just getting around to writing last week’s Word of the Week post! 🙈😳
To celebrate the World Athletics Championships (or, as the French press have called it, ‘Les Mondiaux de Londres’) held in London last week, our mot de la semaine is ‘les haies’.
Word of the Week:
Les haies.
How to pronounce it:
Lay ay.
What it means in English:
Although ‘les haies’ literally means ‘the hedges’, it is also used to mean ‘hurdles’ in sport.
Where does it come from?
The French version of Wiktionary suggests that ‘la haie’ (the singular form of ‘les haies’) comes from the German word ‘Haag’. Like ‘haie’, ‘Haag’ also means ‘hedge’ in English.
It also explains that the word ‘haie’ was first introduced into French as ‘hoie’ from around 1080. The word ‘haie’ then started to be used instead in French from around 1155.
How to use it in a sentence:
“Les haies est un sport assez difficile.”
English translation:
“The hurdles is a fairly difficult sport.”
Similar words:
Un coureur de haies/une coureuse de haies = A hurdler
L’athlétisme = Athletics
Les championnats = Championships
Gagner une médaille = To win a medal
Le champion/la championne = The winner
Le vice-champion/la vice-championne = The runner-up
Le sport = Sport.
Hope you liked this week’s post! And, as always, if you’d like to read any other Word of the Week, you’ll find all of them here 🙂
French Affliction 