"Les enfants lisent les noms des animaux."
Translation:The children read the animals' names.
12 Comments
The correct translation in English should be either: The children read the names of the animals. (Best) or The children read the animal names. (Better) or The children read the animals' names. (Good) None of those were options! :(
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Right! 'Animal' must be used in possessive adj form (ie either animal's or animals') or as a compound noun form in singular form (ie animal names). It is technically wrong in English to make it a plural
There is no 's in French for posession so they use "de" for singular or "des" for plural. The "des" here is kind of like "of". "The children read the names OF the animals" or you could consider it like the apostrophe "The children read the animals' names." As another example, in French to say "Tom's cat" you would say "Le chat de Tom". There are other uses of "de" and "des" in some of these sentences that I don't completely understand but here it is clear that it is used to show that the names belong to the animals.
It seems like there are many case where the plural does not necessarily invoke des. For example beaucoup is always followed by de. There was an example "nombre de" - no des. I guess these are exceptions.
I write "the children read the animal names" because in that case "animal" is a general term. It said I was wrong because i should have used the plural possessive (animals') but i think they mean exactly the same thing
i agree. 'animal' is a pronoun here... And i cannot see other equivalent translation to french
Interesting...I submitted the exact translation listed above and Duolingo says my "animals' " should be simply "animals." Very interesting.
ISN'T IT TIME FOR DUOLINGO (WHO KNOWS ALL) TO ADD AN APOSTROPHE TO THE END OF WORDS LIKE ANIMALS' WHEN THEY ARE PART OF THE LESSONS?
