"Can I" and "may I" in EnglishBonjour,
I certainly do not know enough of French culture and language to discuss your explanation of French usage, below. However, I disagree that in English, the difference between "may I" and "can I" is that "may I" is more formal. More accurately, "can I" may be informal and in common usage, yes, but it is also often considered abrupt and somewhat impolite, and this is not only by grammar nerds (or oldies) such as I (or grammar nerds like me, to use more idiomatic speech, ha ha).
The grammatical distinctions are obvious, of course ("can" denoting capacity or ability, "may" is conditional, one is granted capacity). One hears often, when someone is ordering in a cafe or bar, "can I get a... ". To many English-speakers, this is grating and impolite. I, for one, hope that "may I have...", does not go out of idiomatic usage (though perhaps that battle is lost and I am just raving...)
Love Lawless French, by the way,
Alice
"In the case of pouvoir, note that je peux becomes irregular in the inverted form: puis-je, in order to ease pronunciation.
This structure is very formal as we stated before, and is usually used to sound particularly polite or even a bit affected: the nearest English equivalent would be to use May I...?"
Can you explain why not using “ dans l prison “ in the exercise ?
Bonjour,
I certainly do not know enough of French culture and language to discuss your explanation of French usage, below. However, I disagree that in English, the difference between "may I" and "can I" is that "may I" is more formal. More accurately, "can I" may be informal and in common usage, yes, but it is also often considered abrupt and somewhat impolite, and this is not only by grammar nerds (or oldies) such as I (or grammar nerds like me, to use more idiomatic speech, ha ha).
The grammatical distinctions are obvious, of course ("can" denoting capacity or ability, "may" is conditional, one is granted capacity). One hears often, when someone is ordering in a cafe or bar, "can I get a... ". To many English-speakers, this is grating and impolite. I, for one, hope that "may I have...", does not go out of idiomatic usage (though perhaps that battle is lost and I am just raving...)
Love Lawless French, by the way,
Alice
"In the case of pouvoir, note that je peux becomes irregular in the inverted form: puis-je, in order to ease pronunciation.This structure is very formal as we stated before, and is usually used to sound particularly polite or even a bit affected: the nearest English equivalent would be to use May I...?"
In the fourth line : Why is it not ‘passer la premiere’ because the driving instructor is requesting two things: (veuillez) ‘appuyer doucement’ and ‘passer au premier’
In the sentence “Depuis qu’elle s’est fait mal avec le couteau l’année dernière” , why is it not “faite” as the subject is elle, or is it because it’s le couteau that hurt her and not a feminine object noun ?
Bonjour. I read the lesson. The lesson does not seem to advise when it is appropriate or better to use être or faire. Does it absolutely not matter? Or are there situations where être may be better to use than faire, or vice versa? Merci.
Is it that the sentence construction - eg the verb - will never need a direct pronoun with 'en' as happens with 'y'?
Or is it the the examples just haven't shown a direct object?
When using avoir as the auxilliary verb in the passe compose, I thought that the past participle had to agree with the direct object... so in the previous exercise there was:
"Nous avons nouri nos chiens" ...are not les chiens the direct object of the verb in that sentence?
"il a fini ses devoirs" ...are not les devoirs the direct object of that sentence...?
...I guess I have got something very wrong here... grateful for any guidance...
Michael
Is there one place where the pronunciation of "plus" is explained? I'm halfway through A1 and it seems sometimes the "s" is pronounced and other times not. I did a search but just came up with lots of individual cases. Are there any general rules stated in one place or is it all idiosyncratic except for the liaisons? Thanks!
Is "etait donne" (with accents) definitely correct here? it's not "etant donne"? thanks
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