42 Comments
I find expressions like this interesting, where the origin of the English word becomes apparent.
Around 60-70% of English comes through French (iirc). If you know the general rules, you can have a couple thousand words in your French vocabulary immediately. For instance, words ending in -ation are all identical in French (with 3 exceptions). Words ending in -cal (e.g. "political") just switch to the -que suffix ("politique"). Words ending in "-able" are often also the same.
- Translation = traduction
- Explanation = explication
- Vacation = vacances (note that it's plural in French)
This info is from the Michel Thomas introductory French course (which I highly recommend), by the way.
une traduction
++ "une vacation" is an existing word, it means: time spent doing a job and compensation for it.
Vacation is also use, in French, for jobs where the time is the key of organisation. For instance, in navy, "le quart" is a vacation time. In personal broadcasting, a rendez-vous at a said hour is called vacation. Useful ?
And do not forget the words ending in -ance/-ence (e.g. importance, innocence, difference) with their adjectives ending with -ant/-ent (e.g. important, innocent, different). They are often the same.
What does "the books are on one side" mean? I would never say this in English. On one side of what?
Why did "à part" mean odd when referring to a boy, but can't have that same meaning here?
2212
The same expression exists in Portuguese, so I'm just guessing the meaning here, but when you say "à part" it means being out of a group, separated. In the case of people, it usually means they're not like their peers, therefore odd (like the expression "you are something else"). In other cases, it usually means something is separated, or must be done separately, bought separately, etc.
The situation I imagine is that you're at a mall buying a bunch of stuff, and while you're paying the cashier says "les livres sont à part", meaning you must pay for them separately, or they're not part of the discount you're getting for the other objects.
It would be good to get the opinion of a native speaker though.
Ok, all of this sounds awesome...but now DL's correct translation has been changed to "the books are on one side," which means exactly the opposite of "the books are apart/separate" to me. Unless it means, "The books are on one side, separate from perhaps???
"les livres sont à part" exactly means: the books are in a different place (separate from other stuff), including in a figurative sense, like: "la TVA est de 19,6% sur les articles vendus ici, mais les livres sont à part avec une TVA à 5%" (the VAT rate is 19.6% on all items sold here, but the books are "à part" with a VAT of 5%). Knowing that, you can translate (in real life) as you think is best.
I think you are interpreting "the books are apart" as meaning they are apart from each other, whereas the two translations are quite consistent if you consider "the books are apart" as meaning a set of books, which is together, is apart from the rest of the books/stuff.
- 1716
"The situation I imagine is that you're at a mall buying a bunch of stuff, and while you're paying the cashier says "les livres sont à part", meaning you must pay for them separately, or they're not part of the discount you're getting for the other objects."
Good example.
Then, my question to the moderators...
When we have to pay for things separate, we usually say "They are separate" in English.
Can we translate this then as "The books are separate"?
- 29
what's wrong with 'odd'? It's one of the definitions. In fact, it's the first definition.
Whz was the books are odd not accepted when the drop down clearly showed a part can be odd...
Have to say knowing the French expression I can't see in which context it would mean "odd". Might be a mistake.
The dropdown lists are purely suggestions for possible translations of a word. There is no connection implied to the sentence in hand. In few cases will all the "hints" work in the same sentence, and in some case, none will.
Think of all the different possible meanings for the English word "bank", for example - a financial institution, the ground next to a river, an array of lights, a shot off the side in the game of pool.... In any one sentence, no more than one would be the correct meaning.
- 1716
I'm not sure how to report this. « The books are odd » wasn't accepted, but the hover-over tip says that « à part » means "odd".
Is my answer correct or is the hover-over tip not helpful?
- 1716
Never mind, I just read the other comments. I'll just report the hover-over tip as not helpful.
- 912
I'm not a native english speaker, I wrote "the books are separated" and was marked wrong. Duolingo suggested "the books are separate" which sounds odd to me. Any comments?
I wrote "books are to go" like you are in a library and take some books to take home, not to read in there. but it appears wrong. :(
