MOUNT ( to ride my horse down the lil dirt road)

Question

My question is similar to Liz. While I resolved the test question "Ce matin, ________ monté au grenier pour ranger un peu." by acknowledging that you dont 'climb the attic' but rather 'climb?? into the attic' and therefore needs 'ETRE', I cannot convince myself re the sentence "I got up on my horse".

If you translated as he 'I mounted my horse" then J'ai monté mon cheval.

But visually and maybe literally "i got up on my horse" is the difference between the dashing hero Lone Ranger style who really mounts and and the bad-guy Jack Palance who slowly 'gets up on his horse' and therefore needs time to "il est monté".

Ok I am being silly. But would you translate the english sentence "i got up on my horse " exactly as you would "I mounted my horse" ? Sad if true because then in french you would lose something in the transaltion.

Accepted Answer

Hi Jameson,
For the attic you would use 'monter' as you use 'descendre' for the cellar -
Monter au grenier ----> Je suis monté/e au grenier
Descendre à la cave  ----> Je suis descendu/e à la cave 
For the horse , 'monter à cheval' is really ' to ride a horse'
J'ai appris à monter à cheval pendant les vacances = I learnt to ride a horse during the holidays
The action of 'mounting' or 'dismounting' a horse will be -
Monter un cheval /Descendre d'un cheval 
J'ai monté mon cheval et je suis partie au galop = I climbed onto my horse and galopped away
Je suis descendu/e de mon cheval et je suis parti/e = I dismounted my horse and left
I hope his helps!