"Les filles mangent des baguettes."

Translation: The girls are eating baguettes.

[wolfe.francine]

This sounded more like mange to me. Isn't mange pronounced "mang" and mangent pronounced "mang-e"?

[Arjofocolovi]

There is absolutely no mean to differentiate "mange" from "mangent" by ear.

In certain cases, Duolingo needs to accept both answers for example :

• "Il mange" / "Ils mangent"

But in this sentence, it's not Duolingo's fault :).

The difference can be made with "les" (plural) which doesn't sound the same as "la" (singular).
When you know it's "les", you know you have to conjugate the verb "manger" to the third person plural which gives you "mangent".

[wolfe.francine]

Hmm.. I must be thinking of some other verbs. Are there other verbs where the ending "es" is silent but "ent" is pronounce "ay"?

[Arjofocolovi]

What you're asking depends of a lot of things. The tense, the verb, which person you use, etc...

In any case, "en" is either pronounced like the end of "maman" (mam"en").
or not pronounced at all (mostly at the end of a word).

[Dusty_G]

What about Dialects? I was in Quebec and heard people say man-jah.

[Arjofocolovi]

I think what you heard has more to do with the Quebec accent, but you would need to provide some kind of audio for me to know for sure.

[SiriSaloka]

If the verb ends with "ent" you dont pronounce it

[radu.r]

So now duolingo think theyre smart and dont allow she eats baguettes

[IsraelHern7]

Would it be wrong if you typed The girls eat some bread?

[Arjofocolovi]

Well, yes, since we specified the kind of bread in French, there is no reason not to in English.

[Marclee1703]

How would I differentiate between "fils" sons and "filles" girls/daughters?

[Arjofocolovi]

"fils" has a "s" sound at the end, "filles" has a "y" sound at the end. In English sounds, it would make something like "fiss" and "feey".

You can check out these pronunciations from native speakers :

http://www.forvo.com/word/fils/#fr

http://www.forvo.com/word/filles/#fr (watch out, RochT seems to pronounce a "p" sound, which is incorrect)

[H_Majid]

I say these types of questions correctly however it always say that I
am reading incorrectly

[EvaW39]

i can't hear the difference between plurals!

[Arjofocolovi]

You mean between singular and plural right ?

• "fille" and "filles" have the same pronunciation.
• "baguette" and "baguettes" have the same pronunciation.
• "mange" and "mangent" have the same pronunciation.

So in this sentence, the two plural indications that you CAN hear are :

• "Les" instead of "Le/la"
• "des" instead of "un/une"

[SannahManuja]

I'm from India and I've never come across the word 'baguettes'. What does it mean?

[Arjofocolovi]

It's a kind of bread, but longer and cheaper. There are also different kinds of baguette.

Here is a link if you want to know more about baguettes :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baguette

[deachick]

I don't understand why sometimes I get it wrong if I put "the" when I see des, other times of I omit "the", I get it wrong?

[Paul-LeBon]

Des means, some. Le/les means the.

[luisgcardoso]

I still don't know when use "Du" and "Des"

[MaiSakagami]

Du is used for singular nouns . des is used for plural nouns . de la is used for feminine plural whereas de is used for masculin nouns

[kitty_bot]

yet another ridiculous question, i know what baguette is but how am i supposed to know what variant you suppose as the correct one, french sticks or french loaf or something

[Apfelle]

Wait, do people actually call it 'French sticks'?!

[Arjofocolovi]

English has borrowed the word, so you can also use "baguette". But "French stick" is also used.

[Arjofocolovi]

A baguette is not a loaf.

[MarshallLee20]

I thought baguettes were French bread. Is not French bread and French sticks the same thing?

[n6zs]

"Baguettes" are a specific kind of French bread. So if it says, "baguettes" in French, it's "baguettes" in English, too. Easy.

[Tink2004]

I spelled baguettes wrong, and it marked the entire thing incorrect. I disagree

[n6zs]

Duo would love to ease up on small spelling errors and typos but in the meantime, if you spell a word wrong, it makes the sentence wrong. Then you are highly motivated to spell it correctly next time. Otherwise, it will continue to give you the word which caused the error.

[SeanMeaneyPL]

Shouldn't "Girls eat baguettes" be accepted also?

[Brisa_P]

I don't get it I typed "The girls are eating the baguettes" but I got it wrong. Why??

[evilkingsam]

i'm not a mod but i'd guess that instead of "eating the baguettes" you'd need either "eating baguettes" or "eating some baguettes." if it were "les baguettes" you could translate as "the baguettes" but it's "des" in this case.

[XxxblacktalonxxX]

i didnt spell it wrong

[milo.odell]

said one of my word spellings was wrong