"Can I" and "may I" in EnglishBonjour,
I certainly do not know enough of French culture and language to discuss your explanation of French usage, below. However, I disagree that in English, the difference between "may I" and "can I" is that "may I" is more formal. More accurately, "can I" may be informal and in common usage, yes, but it is also often considered abrupt and somewhat impolite, and this is not only by grammar nerds (or oldies) such as I (or grammar nerds like me, to use more idiomatic speech, ha ha).
The grammatical distinctions are obvious, of course ("can" denoting capacity or ability, "may" is conditional, one is granted capacity). One hears often, when someone is ordering in a cafe or bar, "can I get a... ". To many English-speakers, this is grating and impolite. I, for one, hope that "may I have...", does not go out of idiomatic usage (though perhaps that battle is lost and I am just raving...)
Love Lawless French, by the way,
Alice
"In the case of pouvoir, note that je peux becomes irregular in the inverted form: puis-je, in order to ease pronunciation.
This structure is very formal as we stated before, and is usually used to sound particularly polite or even a bit affected: the nearest English equivalent would be to use May I...?"
Bonjour,
I certainly do not know enough of French culture and language to discuss your explanation of French usage, below. However, I disagree that in English, the difference between "may I" and "can I" is that "may I" is more formal. More accurately, "can I" may be informal and in common usage, yes, but it is also often considered abrupt and somewhat impolite, and this is not only by grammar nerds (or oldies) such as I (or grammar nerds like me, to use more idiomatic speech, ha ha).
The grammatical distinctions are obvious, of course ("can" denoting capacity or ability, "may" is conditional, one is granted capacity). One hears often, when someone is ordering in a cafe or bar, "can I get a... ". To many English-speakers, this is grating and impolite. I, for one, hope that "may I have...", does not go out of idiomatic usage (though perhaps that battle is lost and I am just raving...)
Love Lawless French, by the way,
Alice
"In the case of pouvoir, note that je peux becomes irregular in the inverted form: puis-je, in order to ease pronunciation.This structure is very formal as we stated before, and is usually used to sound particularly polite or even a bit affected: the nearest English equivalent would be to use May I...?"
Hi,
Can you kindly explain the use of the preposition in the following sentence.
In a phrase 'je t'aime de tout mon cœur' that translates to 'I love you with all my heart', why do we use preposition DE to express WITH rather more commonly use AVEC.
Kind regards, Kirill
Qu’en est-il de Julien et Sophie?
I don’t understand the structure of this question. I imagine there is an idiom I haven’t seen before. What is en replacing? What is il referring to?
Thanks.
By GDP La Californie as of 2018 is 50% richer than Le Texas. (Probably why so many French people live in L.A.!)
By median income Le Texas doesn't even make the Top 10. The top 3 are 1. Le New Hampshire 2. Le Minnesota 3. Le Hawaii.
Just thought you would like to know ... :- )
Walter B.
Bonjour,
Could one also say "On a volé mon sac"
I think i've seen it expressed that way somewhere.
Merci.
I am a bit confused with ne...pas Le passe compose/ present indicatif for depuis longtemps. In a test I translated "How would you say ''I haven't been in France for long.''? as "Je n'arrive pas en France depuis longtemps."
But it was marked wrong. Can you explain why Passe compose is the correct tense for this
I understand that une soirée indicates the duration of the evening, while un soir indicates the general time of day, but given this is a Level 1 quiz, is that not a bit advanced for this level? As far as I recall the only context given in Level one for "une soirée" was for an evening function or party. I was marked wrong for using choisissez rather than choisis, presumably because choisissez is too advanced for this level?
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