"Bonne journée."
Translation:Have a good day.
97 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
544
Also words acquire meaning by how they are used by people over time. So even though it may not be a literal translation, we need to learn how the French USE it.
2131
Bonjour John Nabil,
Literally, if you really want to translate the word "Have", the phrase "Have a good day!" means "Aie une bonne journée !" or "Ayez une bonne journée !"
"Aie" is the verb "avoir" (to have) conjugated in the second person singular (tu = you) of the present imperative and "Ayez" is in the second person plural (vous = you) of the present imperative.
But I've never heard a Frenchman say either of those two sentences.
We rather say "Passe une bonne journée !" or "Passez une bonne journée !" (Have a nice day!), or just "Bonne journée !" (Have a good day!).
It literally means "Good day" and it is translated as "HAVE A good day" because it is said when one leaves or says bye to someone else (by the morning usually). Jour is a specific day and Journée is more a general term to refer to the events ocurring in the day and what the person will encounter. That's more how i see it, i take french in University and thats how i understand it
544
Often the options you can pick don't fit the situation at all so the Report button is often pretty useless in my experience. For example, once the English translation was not really English at all but the only choice available was that the French was inaccurate. You really need a REAL report button where we can report all problems, not just the 2-4 that you give as choices.
2352
Exactly this. "Good day" is a perfectly valid translation and a bad reason to deduct health. And it is a farewell.
786
From what I know a full 24 hour day is translated using "jour" whereas "journée" is more time specific covering sun rise to sun down.
544
if you mean the mark above the "e", its not a hyphen, it's called an "accent". There are several different accents in French that change the sound of the letter. Perhaps someone who knows how to access font with accents can tell you where to find them. Otherwise I have only used them when the options show up in little boxes on the screen.
544
I learnt it as the accent that starts to the right and angles down towards the left, sounds like long a [ay] but when I listen now it sounds half way between long a and short e. I think my hearing has changed over time to be more attuned to French sounds, whereas before I could only hear English sounds. I learnt the other angled accent [from top left towards back right] as English short e, but again I think its different than how I was taught because it sounds different to me here but not like any English sound, so its hard to catch. If you really want to know and learn the sounds, I'd suggest looking up French vowel sounds on google.
Remember that French does not have long or short vowel sounds, so the comparison with English does not make much sense, nor with a diphthong like "ay". Both "é" and "è" are short sounds, the former "in a smile" (your mouth a bit more opened than for a short "i") and the latter "open-mouthed" (as in "let" or "best").
"Bonne" is in the feminine and ends with an -N sound. https://forvo.com/search/Bonne/
"Bon" is in the masculine an ends with the nasal sound "on". https://forvo.com/search/Bon/
Why were we not able to select what it actually says rather than what it means?
because that was its intent, literal translations usually suck; thats partially why google translate is so bad, it cant detect context very well so it ends up just giving literal translations which are usually horrifically bad.
TLDR; because it doesnt make sense and youre not going to be doing literal translations often because of clarity.
544
Probably because the computer is looking for "good" and is programmed to accept that as equivalent to "bonne".
544
Well that is a different word so that's why its wrong. god is not good, even though they are related; they are not the same word.
544
What do you need help with? If it is about this particular exercise try to explain what you are confused about.
This is not the forum to get technical help from. Please try this forum: https://forum.duolingo.com/topic/647
544
Au revoir = literally " to see again" and so is used for "Good bye".
à bientôt = maybe something like, I'm not sure..."to well early" and so is used for "See you soon".
Bonne Journée = literally (in the feminine) good day, but is only used when talking about the whole day, and is used for "Have a good day". I'm still learning but this is what I've picked up. If anyone knows more, please contribute.