Describing an apple in French – colour, size, and taste

Kids are so curious about everything, and even something as ordinary as an apple can turn into an engaging (and tasty) scientific observation for them. A few weeks ago, we visited a pumpkin patch and farm, where Surya realized that apples grew on trees. Who knew! I thought it was a great time to channel that amazement into an apple observation and discovery activity, where she could learn to describe an apple in French. While I would have loved nothing more than to take her apple-picking, the orchards were simply too far a drive for us. So, we decided to pick up a few apples from our neighbourhood supermarket for our experiment.

What’s an apple in french?

“Apple” in French is “une pomme“.

Apple tree – un pommier

Apple observation

Apples come in a variety of colours and sizes, which make them great subjects of observation.

Colour – couleur

To describe the colour of an apple, you can say:

The apple is…

La pomme est…

Since the word “pomme” is feminine, you have to make sure to use the adjective in the feminine form too.

Red – rouge (the same for both masculine and feminine)

Yellow – jaune (the same for both masculine and feminine)

Green – vert (masculine), verte (feminine)

Pink – rose (the same for both masculine and feminine)

Size – taille, calibre

To describe the size of an apple in French, you can point to one and say:

This apple is…

Cette pomme est…

Big – gros (masculine), grosse (feminine)

Small – petit (masculine), petite (feminine)

Using the feminine form of the adjective, your child can practice describing each apple in French as:

This apple is big.

Cette pomme est grosse.

This one is small.

Celle-ci est petite.

Appearance – apparence

To describe the outer part of the apple and practice some of the French colour and size vocabulary, you can encourage your child to pick one up and say:

Here’s a small red apple. Look how shiny and smooth it is!

Voici une grosse pomme rouge. Qu’elle est luisante et lisse !

Shiny – luisant (masculine), luisante (feminine)

Smooth – lisse (the same for both masculine and feminine)

Firm – ferme (the same for both masculine and feminine)

Apple taste testing

Taste – goût

Sweet – sucré (masculine), sucrée (feminine)

Tart – acidulé (masculine), acidulée (feminine)

Other characteristics

Crunchy – croquant (masculine), croquante (feminine)

Juicy – juteux (masculine), juteuse (feminine)