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13,280 questions • 28,367 answers • 799,863 learners
Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers
13,280 questions • 28,367 answers • 799,863 learners
"I gave it to him yesterday"
I have seen it translated into French as both:1)"Je le lui ai donné hier." and 2) "Je lui ai donné hier."
Duolingo teaches the first translation above and it is also what is seen on some reliable French websites such as Lawless French. However I have also seen it translated as in number 2 and translators in particular seem to leave out the "le."
Is this just a quirk of the translators, is it a difference between written and spoken French, or is it acceptable to leave out the "le" in either spoken or written French? Any help would be appreciated.Andrew K. Greenfield, MDIn the phrase, "curieuses boîtes", how do you know to place curieuses before the noun.
Thanks
Why are we adding de in front of mieux in the sentence il n’y a rien de mieux que d’’ouvrir.....
« Combien d’enfants avez-vous? »
Can’t figure out why this is right. Enfants is plural.
Wouldn’t you say « J’ai des enfants. »
"Avez-vous ton crayon?" This sentence here mixes a formal (or plural) pronoun with a familiar possessive adjective, which doesn't feel correct. Could I get confirmation that "ton, ta, tes" works for whomever is directly spoken to?
One of the translations in the quiz was 'Everybody wants to do their best'. This may be in common usage now but correctly, I think, it should be 'his/her' best. Here 'everybody' is singular hence the singular verb 'wants', so the pronoun needs to correspond to the noun as well as the verb.
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