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- Topic: French >
- "Il a un chien."
72 Comments
I find that 'chein' and 'chat' sound very similar and I get them mixed up all the time.
At first I had some trouble with this, too. But there's a slight difference:
Both words are monosyllabic, but this is how the moras in the syllable sound: - Shee-aa (dog) - Shaa (cat)
You're not alone. I'm going to try listening to one, then the other in the vocabulary section to see if I can find a distinction.
One (somewhat subtle) difference is the nasal "n" sound at the end of chien. If you can get an ear for the French "n" sound, which is quite different from English, then that would help you tell them apart.
"Il a" means "he has" not "he is" for some reason duolingo thinks that "he has" can be written as "he's".
il a un chien - [a] is avoir meaning to have. [est] is an etre verb meaning to be. [est] and [a] are two different verbs. This one is using the [a] verb so we know the sentence is saying - he has a dog as opposed to he is a dog.
How do I know the difference (pronunciation) between "Il y a" ( there is) and "Il a" (he has)?
I wrote "He is a dog" and the answer is "He's a dog"... Aint that the same thing? Or not, my answer is more correct. I think though that "a" was the word for have/has.. So its all just wrong
I think there's an error in the correction. It should be "He has a dog". Maybe the rules for possessive got mixed up (Bob's dog vs. His dog?). Anyway, if you answer, "He has a dog", it will both be marked as correct and actually be correct.
Chat and chien, no matter how careful I listen I can't differentiate! Does anyone else find this a problem? Could it be phrased using more unique nouns for those of us whose ear is not yet tuned into the nuances of the language?
The a on chat sounds like a on smArt, the EN on chiEN sounds like AN on BriEN.
Omg. I thought they said il y a un chien. Very upsetting (I hate loosing hearts) by the way, how do you earn lingots?
I put he is a dog, and they said it was wrong. He's is the same as he is....
When I use a contraction instead of the full word, I am considered incorrect. That should be acceptable.!
Example : He's / He is
I almost got it wrong... the uppercase "i" and the lowercase "L" are both the same for my text. I thought it said "ii."
Got this wrong because I thought it was "Ils a un chien." (They have a dog.) I guess I thought the 's' in "s" was supposed to be silent all of the time. Can someone clarify this? Is it supposed to be silent unless used in front a word that begins with a vowel or silent h?
Thanks!
The 's' in 'Ils' IS always silent. However, if it was 'Ils', the next word would not be 'a'. It would be 'Ils ont un chien' (they have a dog). That would be the proper conjugation of the verb avoir, which is where 'a' comes from.
It depends on the gender of the animal. "La chienne" is "The female dog" and "Le chien" is" "The male dog".
"Le chat" is the male cat and "la chatte" is "The female cat."
Pay attention to the article and the pronunciation of the noun.
Mostly of the animals are masculine when you are talking about a not specified one. A dog is un chien, but a female dog is une chienne.
I translated "It has a dog." and was marked wring even though "il" = either he or it. Any comments?
he's is a contraction to both "he is" and "he has" so i think that would justify it
Il a un chien = he has a dog, but it doesn't accept the answer like this, why?
everyone is pissed because they wrote chat while im over here saying that he is a dog
Because the person who has the dog is male, does that mean i have to use 'un chien'? Why doesn't 'une chienne' work?
I listened to the fast way three times before writing "There is a dog." Sure sounded like "Il y a un chien."
I found it hard to tell the difference when they say "il y a chien" and "il a un chien" it sounds the same to me! Both sentences would make sense as stand alone. Any tips?
Typos should be permitted, i mistakenly wrote dig instead of dog and got a wrong answer
