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- "Vous allez manger du chocola…
60 Comments
You are not wrong because it might mean the same. However, this sentence is meant to teach you how to match the English construction "to be going to + infinitive" with the French one "aller" + infinitive.
That means "to be on the verge of doing something" = "être sur le point de faire quelque chose".
It expresses an immediate future.
I think that if a French person would mean "you go to eat chocolate?", he/she would say: "vous allez là-bas pour manger du chocolat ?".
206
Wow, that is super interesting that such an idiomatic way to express the future would be found to be the same in both English and French. Do you know of any historical linguistic connection, like maybe English got it from French?
Many western languages use the present tense of verb "to go" - as an auxiliary verb - followed by an infinitive verb. English: "I am going to talk"; French: "Je vais parler"; Spanish: "Yo voy a hablar"; Portuguese: "Eu vou falar". English is a little bit different because it uses gerund, but it's still present tense.
"You are" is sometimes perfectly fine English, particularly if it's a matter of surprise or clarification. A: "I'm going to eat chocolate" B: "You are going to eat chocolate? (Really? Did I hear that correctly?)" If you had instead replied "Are you..." it would come across that you didn't even hear them at all!
I really like this site, but....come on! It's very annoying sometimes! In other situation like this one I had put "to + verb" and was wrong. Now I didn't used "to" and was wrong too. And "You are going to eat chocolate?"? Is this correct? Starting a question with "You are"??? English is not my first language and I am not fluent on it, but I never learned something like this.
That's perfectly fine English, particularly if it's a matter of surprise or clarification. A: "I'm going to eat chocolate" B: "You are going to eat chocolate? (Really? Did I hear that correctly?)"
I'm not sure what other situations you're talking about but I'm guessing it was incorrect before because you tried to translate something that wasn't infinitive as an infinitive. Here there is an infinitive (manger) and so "to" is correct.
2299
I presume you got the audio version since you mentioned detecting the plural form. If so, you would hear "vous allez". It sounds different than "Tu va". If you do not know how to conjugate the present indicative tense of at least a few simple verbs to start with, être, avoir, aller, manger, then it's time to learn. Click here: an adventure awaits you. http://www.conjugation-fr.com/conjugate.php?verb=aller
916
So, what is the difference between: "Vous allez manger du chocolat?" and "Vous mangerez du chocolat?"...? please =)
Dear Anna, I appreciate that and I suggest as a side comment that both in English and French, we can ask fake questions, when we are puzzled, surprised, bewildered.... Then we can use a statement form, together with an intonation which can be both interrogative and exclamative.
Like:
- What? You are going to eat chocolate? I just can't believe it!
- Quoi ? Tu vas manger du chocolat ? Je ne peux pas le croire !
Now, you may tell me that the use of a question mark might be highly debatable...
Dear Sitesurf, all I'm saying that in English (relaxed or not) we don't use 'you are going to' if we mean it as a question. Exclamation - yes. Statement - yes. A question needs an inversion, i.e. Are you going to...
I understand that your examples are to illustrate the situation in French, where it's possible to indicate that fact that we are asking a question purely with our intonation, without changing the word order.
100
Is it necessary to put a space between the last word and the question mark/exclamation point?
i.e., "Vous allez manger du chocolat ?" as opposed to "Vous allez manger du chocolat?"
1863
How important is "are" when the context is the same in my answer "You going to eat chocolate?" I received an incorrect?