“Would” causing confusion “We would gather at the … table”
translates to:
On se retrouvait à la table…
On se rassemblait à la table…
On se réunissait à la table…
How is the “would” in “We would gather” reflected here? How is this different from “we gathered”, “we used to gather”, or “we were gathering”?
Same thing with “and we'd devour …” translating to “et on dévorait…”.
The French imparfait seems natural here. Maybe it’s really the function of the English word “would” that’s confusing me when trying to analyse it. It’s the same word as the conditional “would”, but this is not conditional. It’s not the main verb, e.g. “to gather”. It’s almost like an English imperfect version of “to be”.
Helpful comments welcome!
When is "we went into (the garden)" "Nous sommes sortis dans le jardin" and when is it "nous sommes allé dans le jardin" The former is used in this exercise but the latter was used in the first exercise "A day with granddad"
About "de problème" in "Je ne pense pas qu'il y ait de problème": Isn't "un problème" at least correct as well? "penser" is negated, "il y ait" is not. When googling the two versions, I get twice the number of the hits for the version with "un problème". E.g. https://onefootball.com/fr/news/thierry-henry-je-ne-pense-pas-quil-y-ait-un-probleme-elye-wahi-38557664
“We would gather at the … table”
translates to:
On se retrouvait à la table…
On se rassemblait à la table…
On se réunissait à la table…
How is the “would” in “We would gather” reflected here? How is this different from “we gathered”, “we used to gather”, or “we were gathering”?
Same thing with “and we'd devour …” translating to “et on dévorait…”.
The French imparfait seems natural here. Maybe it’s really the function of the English word “would” that’s confusing me when trying to analyse it. It’s the same word as the conditional “would”, but this is not conditional. It’s not the main verb, e.g. “to gather”. It’s almost like an English imperfect version of “to be”.
Helpful comments welcome!
In the sentence 'plus on parle le français dans un pays, plus on y vend de produits français' why is it 'de' and not 'des' ?
The translation -' you went back to your childhood house' is not something we would say in english english. We would either say 'childhood home' or ' the house I lived in in my childhood'. I'm trying to work out why this is and it has something to do with the word childhood as an abstract noun. Childhood is never an adjective. ' Childhood home' is a kind of double noun, an inversion of 'home of my childhood' . I'm afraid I'm not a linguist so dont have the grammar to describe this. I just know it sounds very odd, and feels wrong.
Duolingo gives a sentence:
"You will have to not make a lot of errors during the exams."
The sentence is awkward and the given answer is:
"Il ne faudra pas faire beaucoup d'erreurs pendant les examens"
but It also accepts:
"Il faudra ne pas faire beaucoup d'erreurs pendant les examens"
as you suggest it should be above. Are both forms acceptable when negating the first of double verbs, is this a unique situation, or is there another explanation?
I wrote "et je revêtirai les vêtements confortables" and it corrected it to "et je mettrai les vêtements confortables". Why can't I use the verb revêtir here? It's the word I always knew for "to put on [clothes]" and according to my dictionary that's exactly what it means.
Sinon seems to be the only word accepted for 'otherwise' (as conjunction meaning 'or else') in this exercise. Autrement gets the strikethrough, although Céline gave it the green light in a response previously.
Find your French level for FREE
Test your French to the CEFR standard
Find your French level