Nomadic / nomade

 

Today's Inktober prompt is "nomadic / nomade".

And here is the cat, going somewhere on a surprised-looking horse.

You would be surprised too, if you suddenly found a large cat on your back.

La femme boit avant le cheval

pour la femme, pour le cheval // for the woman, for the horse

This time, an illustration for another delightfully silly (and horsey) phrase from Duolingo : "La femme boit avant le cheval" - "The woman drinks before the horse".

I don't know who is thinking up these phrases, but I suspect they occasionally get bored and introduce something nonsensical just to amuse themselves. 

Kind of reminds me of an old student joke : "А электрод я взял деревянный, потому что этот диплом все равно никто читать не будет." - "I used a wooden electrode since no-one gonna read this thesis anyway". I don't know how international it is, maybe it is a part of the students' lore everywhere.

Le cheval a huit ans

Le cheval a huit ans / The horse is eight years old

This time the phrase comes from Duolingo site. I thought it was rather adorable and lends itself well to a little drawing.

Judging by the discussion under the phrase, native English speakers find it difficult to accept that age construction can contain verb “to have” (“avoir” in French, “a” in third person singular) and not the equivalent of “to be”. Fortunately I have already passed though this stage with Spanish. Spaniards also “have” their years, not “are” them, if I may say so.

Come to think of it, the Russian construction “Тебе сколько лет?” — “Мне 50”, implies by the grammatical cases that somebody went and gave the years to the speaker. I.e., the question can be interpreted as “How many years (were given to) you?” and the answer “I (was given) 50”. If so, Russians also “have” their years.