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Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers
14,861 questions • 32,278 answers • 1,001,456 learners
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!
Is the above question an acceptable translation of "What do you think?"
Bonjour Madame !
A sentence stated in the lesson reads -
“Elles se seront réveillées trop tard et auront manqué leur train.”
Could this sentence have a better meaning if one writes as -
“Elles se seront réveillées trop tard et manqueront leur train.”
This would indicate that the action of waking up will get completed first, followed by that of missing the train.
As the grammar tip in one of the lessons at Kwiziq states-
Le Futur Antérieur-> Action which will finish first.
Le Futur Simple -> Action which will happen once the former action gets completed in the future.
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.
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