À la plage beach vacation sea sports French vocabulary

Ahhhh... the beaches of France! Whether you go there for a vacation or just want to improve your French vocabulary, this list will certainly prove useful to you.

To best memorize this vocabulary, make sure you link the French word to an image in your head, not to the English word!

Lets start with a fun idiom: "ce n'est pas la mer à boire" - lit. it's not like you had to drink the whole sea. It means it's not that difficult to do!

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La plage et la topographie

La plage - the beach
Le sable – the sand
Une plage de sable - a sand beach
Une plage de galets - a round pebble beach
Une crique - a little beach between clifs
Une dune de sable - a sand dune
Un banc de sable - a sand banc, a temporary island
Une falaise - a cliff
Une baie – a bay
Une péninsule – a peninsula
Un rocher – a rock
Une côte – a coast
Une île – an island

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La mer et l'océan

La mer - the sea (don't mistake with the homonyms "la mère" - the mother, and "le maire" - the mayor)
L'océan - the Ocean (watch out the pronunciation o - say - an/nasal)
Une vague - a wave (strong French "a" sound, don't say it like the word "vague")
L’eau (f) - the water (pronounced “lo”)
Un courant - a current
Le vent - the wind
La marée haute - high tide
La marée basse - low tide
Les mouettes – seagulls (sounds like mwet)
Les poissons – fishes
Une algue – a seaweed
Une huitre – an oyster (une nweetr)
Un pin – a pine tree

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Le matériel de plage

Un parasol - a sun umbrela
Une chaise longue – a beach chair
De la crême solaire - some sun screen
Des lunettes de soleil - sun glasses
Une serviette de plage - a beach towel
Un sac de plage - a beach bag
Prendre un bain de soleil – to sunbathe
Faire des chateaux de sable - to build sand castle
Une pelle - a shovel (it kind of sounds like the English "pail", so it can be confusing)
Un rateau - a rake
Un seau - a pail
Bronzer - to suntan
Prendre/attraper un coup de soleil – to get sunburned
Un sac étanche - a waterproof bag
Une combinaison de plongée - a wet suit
Des palmes - flippers
Un masque - a mask
Un tuba - a snorkle (yes, this one is quite weird !!)
Un maitre nageur - A beach/pool guard
La natation – swimming (the noun)
Une piscine – a pool (sounds just like “piss in” LOL)

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Les sports nautiques

Nager - to swim
Se baigner - to bathe (meaning being in the water, swimming or not)
Patauger - to be in water and splash around like a kid would
Nager la brasse - to do the breast stroke
Nager le crawl - to do the crawl
Sauter dans l'eau - jump in the water
Plonger – to dive
Surfer sur les vague - surf the waves
Boire la tasse – to accidentally swallow (sea, pool...) water
Se noyer - to drown
Faire du surf - to surf
Faire de la planche à voile - to windsurf
Faire du ski nautique - to water ski
Faire du ski jet - to jetski
Faire de la plongée sous-marine - to do scuba diving
Faire de la plongée libre - to snorkle
Faire du masque et du tuba - to snorkle (longer but more used)
Faire de la voile - to sail
Faire du kayak - to kayak

Now that you've mastered the French beach and water sports vocabulary, practice your understanding of it in my "learn in context" articles - see links below!

À la plage! A "Learn French vocabulary in context" story

Camille va nager ! A "Learn French Vocabulary in Context" story

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