French language Q&A Forum

I am surprised that is listed without a black label warning...........................

Chatte is "pussy" in English with the same in your face sexual connotation attached to both. In polite conversation with a proper Frenchman your female cat is always a but when using a pronoun. Educated (et éduqués, i.e. properly brought up, another matter entirely) middle-class Frenchman never use , unless for some reason they wish to be vulgar. 

To wit: when I visit a French friend (male or female) and ask where her female cat is, I say , and she answers has gone the way on PUSSY in English, which admittedly may refer to any cat, a distinction without present consequence IMO. "Pussy" and are best left in the locker room, my friends. I never use either and get along just fine in locker rooms and drawing rooms. While I'm at it, there is not word in English for a female cat - you're female cat is, well, just a female cat. Mine is whining just now over imagined wrongs, so I'll get off whilst I'm ahead. Ciao!

Hi there; apologies if this question has been asked and dealt with before. I have just been told that, as a translation of Aurelie eats bread, 'Aurelie mange le pain' is incorrect, with 'Aurelie mange du pain' being the correct answer. I can understand how, if the English was Aurelie is eating bread one would write 'du pain', because Aurelie can only ever be eating some bread at a given moment. I also understand how Aurelie mange le pain would lead one to infer that the sentence is referring to a specific piece of bread that Aurelie is eating. However, surely in English, one of the major connotations of Aurelie eats bread, is that it is a general statement about one of the kinds of food that Aurelie eats (in the same way that one might say Aurelie eats meat (ie Aurelie isn't a vegetarian). And if it is a general statement, then one is effectively saying that Aurelie will eat any bread that is put in front of her. In other words, she doesn't as a general rule, only eat some bread ('du pain') she eats all breads ('le pain'). In which case, shouldn't Aurelie mange le pain be marked correct? What am I missing here? Thanks in advance!

Hello,

When I took the test it said I got the answer wrong when I said it was Léon. How come the answer is either of them when the professeur is masculine?

Thank you

Nicole