D’autres vides autres

Barbara H.B1Kwiziq community member

D’autres vides autres

Il faut gagner le respect des autres. Why is this not d’autres when the question says you must gain the respect of others. It doesn’t say ‘the others’, just ‘others’ Thanks
Asked 1 week ago
CélineKwiziq Native French TeacherCorrect answer

Bonjour Barbara,

Thank you for your comment! It's a very interesting question! You've actually made us have a really interesting discussion too.

We decided to remove this test question as it is too advanced for the level of the lesson.

Take a look below for more explanation:

- Il faut gagner le respect d'autres (+ [something])

Il faut gagner le respect d'autres personnes

-> here "d'autres" functions as an adjective ; hence, the need of a word

 

Il faut gagner le respect des autres

Il faut gagner le respect des autres

-> the definite article (de + les) "transforms" "autres" into a noun

 

I hope this is helpful.

Bonne journée !

Andy _.A2Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Celine--The confusing thing about this is something that is not mentioned in this lesson. If I were to say "Some sell apples and others sell papers," "others" is a pronoun, and the correct word in French, d'autres, would be a pronoun--but it feels to us laymen like a noun (just as in "le respect des autres"), in which case this lesson would prime us to translate it as des autres. As far as I understand it, though, it is only a pronoun in aggregate--the "autres" part of "d'autres" is in fact an adjective (for the implied other persons), thus des becomes de (and thus not des autres, even though it feels like the same usage--"others" as a group). I believe my reasoning is correct; in any case, it's a common scenario which this lesson leads one ill-equipped for, unless I missed something. I can understand a reluctance to muddy the waters with this detail, just as you removed the instance mentioned in this question, but the distinction between the two differing noun/pronoun uses of d'autres would spare your readers from a seeming contradiction down the road. Maybe this will be of use to someone googling their way to an answer. Maybe a link at the bottom for a separate, more advanced lesson would be warranted.

Barbara H. asked:

D’autres vides autres

Il faut gagner le respect des autres. Why is this not d’autres when the question says you must gain the respect of others. It doesn’t say ‘the others’, just ‘others’ Thanks

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