French language Q&A Forum

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!

Ma famille habite en France = my family lives in France...

Why is it not Ma famille habitent or habitons en France? Isn't family refering to "they" or "us" rather than "he" or "she" for conjugation? For example: Mes parents vivent en France. That makes sense to me because parents are like "they" so it gets the ent ending. Why is it not the same for famille? Merci!

Merci!

Female professor would not use the title professeuse?

"Oui, je suis americain d'origine, mais en tant que vampire je n'ai pas de pays."

Could you discuss the usage of "en tant que" please? Is there a lesson related to this subject? From the context it is easy to discern the meaning, but I would like to learn more about the correct usage of this phrase and any other related phrases.

What is the difference between article definis and article indefinis. Why can't we use les or des for a plural, or any of these?

Hi Aurélie: Maybe you could put some clarification in the lessons re. the above le/du question. Unfortunately, it falls in the middle of the partitive and the definite article lessons. As your examples above, I had always seen that the definite article was used for general cases, the classic being “J’aime le thé”. But to me, “Je bois le thé” seems just as general (and same meaning). As would “Je mange le pain”. But it seems that for verbs involving consumption of the item that the partitive should be used; as in one of the lesson questions “Je bois du jus d’orange au petit-déjeuner.” That sure seems general to me. Would “I like tea at breakfast” now be “du thé” ? Thank you.

please tell any site that has a list of suggested vocabulary for delf a1