Marie's cat, again.

N. Hilary (Shamrockhill)C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

Marie's cat, again.

My question is about putting "Marie caressait son chat" into the La Voix Passive. I have read Skylar's comment and the answers to her question. I agree with Ron, that "Le chat de Marie..." resolves the ambiguity of whose cat it is. So, I wrote: "Le chat de Marie etait caressait par elle" which was marked wrong. Could someone explain why this is wrong?

Je vous remercie beaucoup !


Asked 1 year ago
ChrisC1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor Correct answer

The answer is: Le chat de Marie était caressé par elle. You have caressait instead of the participle.

JimC1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

Salut,

I take the cat to be male.   So for the passive voice "Il a été caressé par Marie" (or "caressée" had the animal been female)

But to take your imparfait request, then --> "Il avait été caressé par Marie" would be passive voice

Hope this helps.

Bonne journée

Jim

N. Hilary (Shamrockhill)C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

Thank you, Chris and Jim. The misspelling of the past participle in my question was a careless mistake on my part. (And, a bit embarrassing, too, as I should have caught it. Just shows that I shouldn't try to write on this forum while my husband is talking to me at the same time. Ha!) 

Here is the exact answer that I wrote on my Study Plan Test:

"Le chat de Marie etait caresse par elle." (Sorry can't do accents here.)

As, you can see I did have the correct spelling of the past participle. Thank you for verifying that the basic structure I used is correct. But, I still am curious as to  why it was marked as wrong?

Jim's phrases are all "La Voix Passive" but in different tenses.  I believe that "Il a ete caresse par Marie" is the passe compose ie. "He was caressed by Marie" ; and that "Il avait ete caresse par Marie" is the plus-que-parfait, ie. "He had been caressed by Marie."

Again, your thoughts would be much appreciated.

Merci et Bonne journee.

ChrisC1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

If that's what you wrote, then you could use the Report button to flag up a problem with the exercise. Grammatically it is the correct answer.

N. Hilary (Shamrockhill)C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

Merci, Chris !

I have reported it as you suggested. 

After some reflection, it occurs to me that we may have been overthinking this exercise. (Or, should I speak for myself and say that at least I may have been overthinking it?) After all, the intention of the lesson is to teach La Voix Passive in the simple tenses. 

As explained, the object becomes the subject using the auxiliary etre conjugated to the same tense as the active verb in the original sentence followed by the past participle of that verb with "par" used to introduce the complement.

Therefore: "Marie caressait son chat"

becomes - "Son chat" + "etait" + "caresse" + "par Marie"

If the original sentence had read: "Marie caressait Gilbert" then we would easily write: 

"Gilbert etait caresse par Marie."

Or: "Marie nettoyait la cuisine" becomes "La cuisine etait nettoyee par Marie." etc.

What threw us was the use of the possessive pronoun, "son" which introduces the question of "whose" cat was Marie caressing. And, the exercise is simply looking for the construction which switches the object to the subject followed by the correct verb usage.

In the end, this has been a fun learning experience. And, Marie's cat is now almost as famous as Schrodinger's !

Bonne journee.

Marie's cat, again.

My question is about putting "Marie caressait son chat" into the La Voix Passive. I have read Skylar's comment and the answers to her question. I agree with Ron, that "Le chat de Marie..." resolves the ambiguity of whose cat it is. So, I wrote: "Le chat de Marie etait caressait par elle" which was marked wrong. Could someone explain why this is wrong?

Je vous remercie beaucoup !


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