What does “un froid de canard” mean?
Je prépare une soupe russe avec l’aide de ChatGPT
B1 French listening practice · French from France · Curated for intermediate learners
A French creator braves a Russian winter to cook soup and opens with the perfect idiom: «Il fait un froid de canard en Russie» (“it’s freezing cold in Russia”). Un froid de canard means “bitterly cold,” literally “a duck('s) cold.”
The image comes from duck hunting: the coldest days, when the ponds froze, were the best for waiting on ducks. French keeps a whole flock of weather idioms, un temps de chien (“foul weather,” literally “a dog’s weather”) is its cousin. The recipe chaos here, asking ChatGPT and mixing up concombres (cucumbers) with cornichons (gherkins), is a bonus vocabulary lesson.
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Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · Lexique 3.83 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.
- ▸French winter weather talk and forecasts.
- ▸Alongside un temps de chien (“foul weather”) in everyday French.
- ▸French cooking vlogs braving the cold for comfort food.
- ▸In French complaints the moment temperatures drop.