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Duke H.B1Kwiziq community member

Please explain "Il lui (verbe)"Bonjour! I'm trying to improve my French through reading, and I've encountered a problem that I don't think was covered in my lessons. I keep seeing the following structure used in a sentence: "Il lui (verbe)." For example: "Il lui manque la montié d'une oreille et ses yeux sont... ." I unferstand this sentence to mean "He is missing half of an ear, and his eyes are... ." My problem is that I can't figure out why such sentences are using "Il lui (verbe)" instead of just "Il (verbe)." Another example is "Il lui arrive même de nous faire cadeau d'un rat." Could you please explain (1) is "lui" is being used as a stress pronoun in this case? And (2) why is it being used at all? Marci! -Duke

Asked 7 years ago

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Diana S.A1Kwiziq community member

how do you say i live in Italy

Asked 9 years ago

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Matthew C.C1Kwiziq community member

Translating part of the name of a street?I’m very confused by this. It would seem very odd to me to if, when talking in English about a street in France, someone would translate “J’habite rue Pasteur.” to “I live on Pasteur Street.” or “I live on Pasteur Road.”. I would expect that they would either leave “rue Pasteur” as it is and say “I live on rue Pasteur.” or, perhaps more likely, captalize the “rue” and say “I live on Rue Pasteur.”. Similarly, I would not expect someone who lived in, say, London, when speaking French, to say something like “J’habite rue Baker.”, I’d expect something more like “J’habite Baker Street.”. In all cases, I’d expect the full name of the street (“rue Pasteur”, “Baker Street”, etc.) to be preserved in translation. I am often shocked at how much people are willing to mangle names of all kinds when using a language different to that from which the name originated, though Kwiziq usually manages to avoid doing so. A quick look at the French and English Wikipedia articles for some notable streets seems to back up my initial thoughts. I was wondering whether to report this as an issue, but I am not quite confident enough to say that Kwiziq is definitely wrong here.

Asked 8 years ago

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Frank C.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Le plat

The idicated translation is "dish." In English, a dish can either be a plate on which food is placed or it can mean an entree. I suspect that the meaning of "plat" is the physical plate on which food is served. Can you verify?

Asked 4 years ago

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William C.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Devenir + Past ParticipleIs it possible to use devenir with the past participle in addition to avoir and etre. des étudiants deviendront désillusionné

Asked 7 years ago

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Andy N.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Mon aussi

Why is it I very occasionally see “mon aussi” appear as a correct translation of "me too" as well as "moi aussi”?

Even Google Translate has this marked with a tick and I must say it does ring a bell from learning French in School years ago. Does it have anything to do with two vowels appearing next to each other of "moi aussi”?

Thanks for any help.

Asked 6 years ago

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katya s.B1Kwiziq community member

subjunctive for croireHello, If I want to ask "do you think that we will win?" do I use the subjunctive even though it's in the future? That is, do I say: "Crois-tu qu'on gagne?" or similarly "crois-tu que nous gagnions?" OR do I say "Crois-tu qu'on va gagner?"/ "Crois-tu que nous allons gagner?" Merci en avance, Katya

Asked 7 years ago

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Dory D.A2Kwiziq community member

Why is it grand-chose and not grande-chose?

Asked 7 years ago

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Paul F.C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

The weather was good the whole time - passé composé ou imparfait?

In this story, “the weather was good the whole time” was translated as “il a fait beau tout le temps”. Why do we use the passé composé here, and not the imparfait ?

I thought the best response might instead be “Il faisait beau tout le temps” as they were describing, or setting the scene for the story. (And also it was the continuous state of the weather without a set beginning or end).

Although I can usually understand when to use the correct past tense now, occasionally one comes along that completely stumps me! Sorry for repeating a question asked a month ago, but I’d really like to know the answer.

Asked 6 years ago

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Catriona T.C1Kwiziq community member

À l'extérieur v. dehorsWe were supposed to translate Daniel lives outside the city. I used "à l'extérieur de and it was marked wrong. The explanation was à l'extérieur is used in the geographical sense. To me, something being outside a city is pretty geographical. Also, I checked Linguee and this is what I got. Please note that most of the quotes in this list are from government websites. "https://www.linguee.com/english-french/search?source=auto&query=outside+the+city

Asked 7 years ago

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