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- "Vous avez des chemises roses…
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How come the individual word pronunciation for "vous" = "voo", but the full sentence pronunciation sounds more like "voos avez ..."? How does someone who's not a native speaker know when to say "voo" vs "voos"?
This is called a liaison. If you were to say You respond, you would say 'Vous repondez.' This is pronounced voo ray-pon-day. However, since avez starts with a vowel, it creates the Z sound. VOOZ avay. Hope I helped.
Hi jesihcuhh. The general rule is when a consonant comes before a vowel the consonant is sounded. There are exceptions. Int this case Vous comes before the vowel "A" of Avez and so is sounded. Bit more like Vou-Z-Avez.
Also kind of like "les enfants", you'd say "lez-ahnfant", not ley-ahnfant". (Please pardon my strange pronounciation key)
It sounds "Voos" when the next word starts with a vowel eccept this conditional it sounds "Voo"
In tips and notes is says: "colors derived from nouns (e.g. fruits, flowers, or gems) tend to be invariable with gender and number." Does rose not derived from the flower? and if so, does'nt it suppose to stay in singular form? thank you
Welcome, Mika, to those annoying and frustrating exceptions. They just have to be memorised. (Tips and notes did "cover it's posterior" with using the word "Tend")
Still not sure when to use rose or roses ... if the exception is that colours named after flowers "tend`" to be masulin singular regardless of the gender or number of the noun then why isn't it rose here - is this the exception to the exception
Logically it should be. This is an exception to the exception, so it acts normally and changes according to gender and number.
where are these «tips and notes» you speak about? could you please tell us how to find them? thanks for your help
Hello M.parlange. If you are working with a PC or Laptop then when you go to the lesson, then they begin at the bottom left of each task in that lesson. If you are you're using any other machine, app or audio -only then I don't know where they are, if at all.
2103
First there is no "de chemise rose". It is not correct French. "Des chemises" is the plural of "une chemise" but without referring to any specific shirts (the shirts = les chemises). The only way to hear the difference is that "des" sounds like the English word "day". Then when you realize that means it is plural, you can adjust "chemise rose" to "chemises roses" which sound identical in French.
why is it roses and not marrons? I understand that these are colours named after real things, but why doesn't the same rule apply?
Roses is an exemption. There are exemptions to every rule and sometimes there is no reason behind it.
How do you distinguish plural chemises vs singular chemise? To me they sound the same!
Almost all nouns sound the same in singular/plural. You need to look at the article to tell whether it is plural or singular. Le/La/Les, Du/De La/Des, Mon/Ma/Mes, Son/Sa/Ses, Ton/Ta/Tes, Votre/Vos, Notre/Nos. So: La Chemise=Singular. Les Chemises=Plural, etc.
- 2103
Most learners experience the same thing before focusing on how "des" actually sounds quite different from "de". Once a person realizes that, a lot of things are suddenly more clear.
Me too. And yet, it's accepted y'all before now, and y'all is a more precise translation of the second person plural. I feel plain wrong every time I use a bare 'you' when I'm translating a plural.
- 2103
The French "vous" may be either singular or plural, as you know. But even when it is plural, it is only translated as "you". Of course, there are some English speakers who use the familiar "y'all" and that's fine. But if you really want to say "you all" in that same sense in French, it is "vous tous".
Holy moly you need a passport to travel in the US. You all is never acceptable English.
please allow the translation of chemise as blouse it is used in preference to shirt for a woman
- 2103
But "chemise" is "shirt" and blouse is "un chemisier". They are different words in French just as there are two different words in English.
Doesn't this sentence sound exactly the same as the singular version of the same sentence or is it just me?
- 2103
The singular form would be "vous avez une chemise rose". The plural one (this exercise) is "vous avez des chemises roses". "Des" (sounds like DAY) is the plural of "une" (or "un").
I'm confused when to use the word "some" when I translate. What's the French difference between saying "You have pink dresses vs. You have some pink dresses?"
- 835
Same here! Most of the time, it seems like DuoLingo accepts translations like "You have pink shirts." So why is it suddenly insisting on the the "some pink shirts" to be counted correct?
- 2103
Maybe you were thinking of the interrogative form where the subject and verb are reversed: avez-vous = do you have. This is called *inversion" and is a formal way of asking a question. When making a statement, i.e., "vous avez" = you have, there is no hyphen.
Hi Kay. Adjectives agree with the gender and number of the nouns they describe with a few exceptions.
- 1721
There seems to be no difference in the pronunciation of this sentence in the plural or the singular.
Oh yes there is. Rjjacob, pink (some pink) shirts = DES (s/l Day) . Singular is Une (A pink shirt= UNE chemise rose ) and they sound Very different.
It would have been a good idea to talk about the color 'rose' being an exception to the rule in your 'tips and notes'.
