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Sounds of the world's animals

A few years ago there was a website called Sounds of the World's Animals from Georgetown University. It featured tables of words such as quack, moo, woof in umpteen languages. Not only that, it had sound files for a good many of them. It was brilliant and it's a pity it no longer exists.

Children in classrooms love this topic and it is guaranteed to produce mirth and not a little chaos as the little darlings all try out their best animal impressions.

There are still some sites which list animal sounds across the world, including French ones. My Twitter friends have reminded me of one or two:

The University of Austin, Texas people (of Tex's French grammar fame) have a list here based on the original Georgetown University one.

There is a longer list here, by Derek Abbott from the University of Adelaide (which, to judge by its appearance, may have also come from the original source?).

This one is fun, because it has sounds too, though the quality varies and some of the pigs sounded suspiciously like real pigs to me, rather than human renditions of them.

 Soundofanimals does sounds but only works with Internet Explorer, it seems. With Firefox I found it hard to navigate. If you want to hear the sounds from the horse's mouth, as it were, try this (for aficionados).

And finally, a clip which you could use in the classroom, although it doesn't give the French words for the sounds, just the actual noises made by the creatures. A nice intro to animals in general though.


I always ended sessions on this topic by asking pupils if they thought a French dog (ouaf) would understand an English dog (woof). Would it be like a Scouser talking to a Geordie?

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