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- Topic: French >
- "Il parle anglais."
39 Comments
could any of the moderators give me some insight here: why il parle l'anglais is incorrect?
1485
My understanding is that the definite article is required for language nouns, except with "parler", in which case it is optional (and most commonly dropped). So Duo should accept "Il parle anglais" or "Il parle l'anglais".
I had the EXACT correct answer and it marked it as wrong. I have been getting this a LOT lately. Sometimes the answer did not have an accent mark or a circonflex, but the remarks used to come back as correct (but remember to pay attention them). Now it just marks the answer as wrong. I do not know how to add those diacritical marks. This is getting REALLY frustrating. I have to quit the lesson as it just keeps going in an endless loop until you get the answer correct. There is no way to get the correct answer in these situations.
- 1485
If the pronoun were "tu" (vs. "il"): the second person singular conjugation of "parler" is "parles".
From what I can tell, you can say choose to use or omit articles with languages. I think both are correct (I hear both, though in the region where I live, hearing something a lot is NO guarantee that it's proper French).
thanks... and don't worry, that's really no different from any place else, and in most cases you sound better using the colloquial rather than proper grammar!
I might sound better to the people here, but then I might be incomprehensible to other Francophones, haha. My husband is fluently bilingual from a young age, and even he has a great deal of trouble understanding some of the people here.
- 1485
You can only omit the article with the verb "parler" (which is what we have here), otherwise it is required.
Can someone tell me what "petit ami" and "petite amie" mean? I see it at the lesson intro, but those word does not appear here.
Boyfriend and girlfriend. I understood « ma petite » or even « ma petite chou » to be "terms of endearment" before this lesson. It was a bit confusing to see « ma copine » show up during the lesson, even then.
Everytime I get one of these listening ones when I can't use my headphones there seems to be no option to skip?
- 1485
With a second person, singular subject ("tu parles").
You need to memorize the conjugations of (at least) the regular -er verbs: je parle, tu parles, il/elle/on parle, nous parlons, vous parlez, ils/elles parlent.
The root is found by dropping the "er" ("parler" -> "parl") and then you add the endings "e" / "es" / "e" / "ons" / "ez" / "ent" based on the subject.
- 1485
In the masculine "anglais" (found in this sentence), the "s" is silent. In the feminine "anglaise", the "s" is pronounced as "z".
Note that in this sentence, "anglais" is a noun for the English language, and is always masculine. If used as an adjective ("English"), it can be masculine or feminine. It can also be used as a masculine or feminine noun meaning "Englishman" / "Englishwoman", in which case it is also Capitalized.
- 1485
"Speak" is grammatically incorrect in this case. "Speak" is a verb that changes (conjugates) with the subject: the "s" is needed for third-person singular subjects (he/she/it). See https://en.bab.la/conjugation/english/speak
- 1485
The English is grammatically incorrect: for most English verbs, the 3rd-person singular (he, she, it) gets an "s" added. The 6 conjugations of "to speak" are: I speak, you speak, he speaks, we speak, you speak, they speak.
It sounded like parlez to me. Is the ending "e" on parle pronounced, because there were two syllables and the second sounded like a long a.
If you can, try to look at and become familiar with "conjugation (charts)" for the "irregular" verbs « être, avoir, faire, aller » and the "regular" verb endings « -er,-ir, -re ». In this case, « parlez » is the « vous » conjugation for an « -er » verb, whereas « Il » is « parle ». There are more complicated tenses later, but at this point, tiny supplements like this have helped us when the audio is a bit distorted or unclear!
- 1485
These days, with devices speaking, “it” probably makes sense. But traditionally only people (Il -> he) speak.
- 1485
Are you in the "word bank" form of the exercise, with word buttons? Are you saying that the word is there but clicking on it doesn't do anything? Is the button partially clipped? Web browser or app version of Duo? There is a known bug with the browser version where you may have to zoom out to see the whole button. If you see this again, take a screen shot and file a bug.
Clearly there is a need for someone to comment on this ridiculous situation. One of many!
- 1485
You have to conjugate the verb "parler" to match the subject, here "il" ("he"): https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/conjugation/parler
