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Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers
14,722 questions • 31,896 answers • 972,612 learners
We play waterpolo."jouons au" is marked incorrect and "faisons du" is correct.
Yet your explanation says to use "jouons au" for a sport that you play regularly. "We play waterpolo" means we play it regularly. That's an unambiguous English sentence. There is no other way to translate that. No English-speaking person would use the phrase "We play" for a single incident. They'd say, "We're playing waterpolo." This seems like a bug to me.
Even the article you link to earlier in this discussion uses "jouons au" for waterpolo. Either you need to explain this better or change the quiz answer.
ETA: In fact, if you type "We play water polo" into Google translate, it says "Nous jouons au water polo." If you google "jouer à vs faire de" you get this explanation:
To remember when to use each verb: if the sport involves a ball, use jouer. If not, use faire.
Someone brought this up 3 years ago. You updated the lesson 2 months ago. This should've been addressed already.
How would you translate the sentence, "Wine, we don't drink much of it." I wasn't sure about "Le vin, ..." so I asked Google Translate, which said it should be "Du vin, ..." But Duolingo marked that wrong and said it should be, "Le vin, ..." Which is correct? "Du vin, ..." actually feels more correct to me, because what you're really saying is, "On the subject of wine, we..." And wouldn't that be, "Au sujet du vin, nous ..." ? (Sorry, I don't know how to classify this type of sentence.)
I know these lower level dictées are meant to be spoken slowly to suit beginners, but I find that with the over-enunciation, I often hear words that aren't there. Not sure whether this is a good thing or not?
For example:
-J'adore voyager
-C'est mon passe-temps favori
I hear :
-j'adore à voyager
-C'est mon passe au temps favori
Regarding the position of interrogative particles, such as 'quand' in:
"Quand Juliette et Pauline ont-elles déménagé ?"
I can't recall exactly which previous lesson(s) touched upon this, but can one shift 'quand' to other positions, such as:
"Juliette et Pauline, quand ont-elles déménagé?"
"Juliette et Pauline ont-elles déménagé quand?"
Why not "était" instead of "a été" ?
Oui, je sais, c’est vraiment bête, why not c'était vraiment bête,
Le pauvre Tom n’arrêtait pas de dire pardon, Tom was'nt stopping saying pardon, instead of why not use ? Le pauvre Tom n'a pas arrêté de dire pardon, Tom did stop saying pardon,
Tom did not stop saying pardon, or Tom ne arréterait pas de dire pardon, Tom would not stop saying pardon.
I find these tenses very confusing,
S'est occupée is passé composé. This is a single action completed in the past. But the text describes an action over the years. Why not s'occupait?
The phrase I saw:
Je suis tout à fait satisfait du cadeau que j’ai trouvé pour Sarah. Je l’ai emballé dans DU JOLI PAPIER et je lui donnerai ce soir.
Here the "du joli papier" I thought it is not preceded by any "de" preposition. "emballer dans" is the preceding phrase. So why is DU used here? A mistake?
Bonjour!
I was wondering when listening to the audio of how to say the verb acheterais and acheterait to me they do sound the same am I correct to make that assumption?
I also wonder if the letter r is always silent as well as the letter L?
Thanks
Nicole
Bonjour!
I was wondering when listening to the sound Tu is it me or does it sound like when you say je?
Thank you
Nicole
Je pense que j'entends "fière" au lieu de "fier", mais je suis un peu sourd. J'ai raison ou non?
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