Today we are going to aborder (discuss) a topic of which I have only une vague compréhension: l’exercice!
En fait, j’aime bien faire de l’exercice (In fact, I like doing exercise). In Paris, my host sister introduced me to the local piscine municipale (city pool), which was conveniently on the way to the world’s finest boutique des macarons (bonjour, Pierre Hermé). Since it was so near the cookie shop, je me suis abonnée à la piscine. Monabonnement (my subscription) was the source of enough humor to make fun of the French for a year, but maybe that can be next week’s post.
Beyond la piscine, my host sister had un coach with whom she did des entraînements au gym every week. (Just as English speakers use a lot of French words to talk about cooking, j’ai l’impression that French people’s discussions of exercise are dominated by English words. Apparently we’re obese exercise maniacs.)
Un coach, or personal trainer, is probablement pas what you will be looking for when you’re trying to burn off some croissants. Let’s learn some vocabulaire de l’exercice!
On peut jouer au sport: one can play sports.
Le baseball
Le basketball
Le football (le foot): soccer
La natation: swimming
L’aviron: rowing (crew)
La pétanque: lawn bowling (this doesn’t count as exercise but it is awesome)
Le hockey
L’escrime: fencing
Le golf (also not exercise; sorry, golfeurs)
Le rugby
Le tennis
L’aquagym: water aerobics (mon sport préféré)
Et plein d’autres (and lots of others).
On peut s’entraîner tout seule: one can train alone (independently).
La varappe: rock-climbing
Courir: to run (le cross: cross-country running)
Le cyclisme: cycling
La randonnée: hiking
Les arts martiaux: martial arts
Le patinage sur glace: ice skating
La haltérophilie: weightlifting (la musculation: bodybuilding. No, I did not learn these words through personal experience.)
Le yoga
Places to exercise:
Le gymnase/ le club de gym: the gym
Le terrain de sport: the sports field
La piscine: the swimming pool
La piste: the track
Le terrain de pétanque: the pétanque court (seriously, play this game)
To motivate you, here’s a pétanque lesson (sadly in English)!
