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- "C'est votre jolie robe noire…
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No, "c'est" means "this is", or in this case "is this?". I don't know what your interpretation would be in french, but maybe "votre joile robe est noire?"
But if it is a question, would it be Is this or is it your pretty dress black?
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In French, yes. But in English adjectives usually precede the noun except in specific circumstances.
This might help.
Agreed - this should also be a correct translations. It is essentially the exact same question as the main right answer.
what's the difference in pronounciation between C'est & ses? i found it hard to distinguish thanks
Can anybody explain how you would say:
1 "Is this black dress yours?" 2 "Is this your black dress?" 3 "Is your dress black?"
Leaving a comment just for the admins to see this question because now I'm confused. It took me a while to understand this exercise and I was trying to reply to some questions, but when I tried to translate this I got stuck at the first question. :/ I wouldn't know how to translate "yours", ta at the end of the sentence sounds wrong.
I thought typing in "is this your pretty black dress?" would work but it said I got it wrong because jolie meant lovely. can "pretty" not work?
I replayed like 100 times and still didn't understand what she was saying..
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How does one know this is a question? There is no inflection. There is no reversal. Could it be a simple statement?
There's a question mark at the end. Without the question mark, it would a simple sentence. I know this might not help but I hope it does...
It doesn't if you get it as a "write down what you're hearing" version.
It does in the version at the top of this page, it mostly certainly did not when I had the question.
OK. Report it. There are sometimes problems with the audio and Duo must be made aware of them. Good to bring this up. Please accept some lingots if they're of use to you, cordial.
The sentence is a question, and in English you have to invert the verb and the subject of an affirmative sentence to make it a question (generally speaking).
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Because you wouldn't say "It is your pretty black dress?" instead you would switch the it and is around to make it fit into the question sentence.
Nothing as far as I know. But here we're being taught another way to ask it another way. Maybe it is a little early on to do so but c'est la vie.
I learned elsewhere that yes/no questions should be phrased as "Est-ce que votre jolie robe noire?"
Is this correct too? Is one more acceptable/standard?
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If you are referring to the use of votre as being an indicator of plurality then you are forgetting the role of votre as being the formal version of your singular.
Sometimes ton for your when it is singular, sometimes votre for your when it is singular. It just depends on whether you want to be formal or not.
If you are wondering how can you tell whether the single or plural use is intended, just look at the rest of the sentence.
In this case everything else in the sentence is singular therefore votre must be as well.
Thank you. I apparently completely missed how votre can be used for a single person.
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jjjen
I think Duo should inject more examples where the formal construction is required just to remind everybody that it is actually fairly common in French. Eg: when speaking to a clerk in a store it is impolite to use the informal tu rather than the formal vous. Same for ton/ votre. Unless, of course, you already know him.
If there are situations in English where you wouldn't be too familiar and casual then when speaking French you would use formal address.
I once saw a young, recently elected member of a legislature who upon meeting a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for the first time, addressed him as buddy. This was considered a major indiscretion by everyone within earshot. Sprinkling tu/ ton throughout the conversation would have been the same thing. When in doubt use vous/ votre. Better to be regarded as a bit stuffy than rude or thoughtless.
Hi again northernguy. I am now confused. I understood Votre (sorry I dont yet have acces to accents) is used before a both masculine and feminine Singular nouns but Vos is used before Plural nouns (of either gender). Am I mistaken or have I missed something? Thanks. JJ.
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Good point.
The problem is that the choice of votre/singular vs. vos/ plural is determined by the noun/object not the noun/subject.
Vous avez votre animal = You have your animal. (where you is a group of people) Votre is used because it is singular and therefore matches animal singular even though it actually refers to something plural (vous). To determine if it is, in fact, something plural you have to look at the rest of the sentence. But you always render it based on the noun it is attached to. If the noun it is attached is singular then it is votre, if the noun is plural, then vos is used.
Similarly, Tu as vos animaux = you have your animals. (where tu is obviously a single person) Vos is used because animaux is plural even though the you that your refers to is singular. Again, if Vous avez vos animaux is the sentence it is still vos even if the vous is intended to be singular formal.
I may be missing something, please confirm that this is a typo. In the above example the last sentence is "Again, if Vous avons vos animaux is the sentence it is still vos even if the vous is intended to be singular formal.".... but shouldn't Vous be conjugated with avez and not avons.
why one adjective in front of the noun and one after? how do we know which side they should go?
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Figurative/ subjective adjectives go in front of the noun. Literal/ objective adjectives go after the noun.
EG: bon homme/ good man If you are referring to his conversational skills or dancing ability that is subjective/ figurative and goes before the noun.
Bon homme/ good man If you are referring to a nobel peace prize winner then that is objective/ literal and goes after the noun.
In the two previous examples it is You that decides what You mean by placing the adjective. When you say old friend do you mean you have known him of a long time (subjective/ figurative goes in front) or he is a very old person (objective/ literal goes after). Only You know what You mean.
To help with placing adjectives there is a convention called B.A.G.S. which calls for conforming adjectives to be placed in front.
Beauty
Age
Goodness (or badness)
Size (except for grand with people)
As you can see most adjectives fitting any of these areas are likely to be subjective/ figurative and go in front.
But since adjectives are subjective by definition there is plenty of variation. Since Duo wants to make sure that you understand the importance of adjective placement they may take hearts on what seems an arbitrary basis but it hasn't happened to me enough to bother me. They will mark you wrong for not placing mauvais in front and later on give you an example where they allow mauvais to be placed on either side. But they won't take your hearts if you stick with B.A.G.S.
I have seen several responses referring to B.A.G.S. However, Duo recommended BANGS in a previous lesson (I forget which). The explanation I copied and pasted is: Placement of adjectives - Most adjectives come after the noun. The exception is: B-A-N-G-S = Beauty - Age - Numbers - Good/bad - Size. B.A.G.S. excludes "Numbers." Is BANGS more correct than BAGS? Just curious. Merci!
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I think the problem with including N is that there are a fair amount of exceptions to numbers so it might cause confusion.
I'm no expert here, but as I understand there are 12 specific adjectives that always precede the noun. jolie is one. I think some of the others are: nouveau, vieu, jeune, mauvias...don't remember them all (yet)
Hi shelyid. Usually in French adjectives follow the noun with exceptions. In English adjectives precede the noun almost without exception. A different construction in English can place the adjective after the noun but the third person is invoked: "The dress is/was black".
Doesn't JOLIE mean beautiful as well? The app corrected it and said the correct word was nice instead of beautifil
Hiya ElisaEisen. My thought is that Duo has brought an "issue" upon itself with "Joli/e in the lessons using it and especially the drop-down options for it. This is, for me, definitely one which the team needs to sort/clarify and soon. Pages could be written but let me suffice it to say: Stick to Pretty for Joli/e. Beau/Bel/le for beautiful/handsome and just absolutely avoid the word "Nice" in the English language. It is banal, means everything and nothing and has no robust definition. A word for the brainless. Use this as a guide and you'll not go far wrong here. Cordial, JJ.
no sadly it does not. i got caught in that too... evidently belle means beautiful. and jolie evidently means something other than pretty too but they didn'tbother to tell us that until the answer comes up wrong. :( how are we supposed to know it can also mean lovely if they don't tell us that? i don't know about you but my name is not "Claire Voyant"
C'est= Ce+est This/It is.... Votre=Your....Jolie=Nice/pretty.....Robe=Dress......Noire=Black. This is your nice/pretty black dress. Note: Often when "Joli(e) is applied to things rather than people it means Nice, not Pretty. Hope this helps, Inaim.
Yes i know, but the problem here is "black" wasn't even mentioned in the answer, only "it is your pretty dress?". Makes no sense
Oh. I've no way to get to the actual task. Was it just an audio test? Noire is in the solution at the top of this page and certainly should have been in the task page. Strange that no other student has mentioned it. Report it.
It clearly sais noire at the end It should be is this your nice black dress? Or smth like that
What is the right order, when there is more adjectives in one sentence? Do the colors always come after the object, and the others come before it? For example "jolie petite robe noir"?
Yes and no, (as always!) With the "BANGS" guide Jolie and Petite come before the noun they describe (Jolie="B":Beauty/Ugliness and Jolie/Pretty comes under that category. Petite="S":Size and that also comes under the BANGS category but Noire doesn't, so it comes after the noun it modifies. BANGS=Before the noun B, Beauty/Ugliness. A, Age. N, Number. G, Good/Bad. S, Size. THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS!).
"Is this nice brack dress yours? " sounds more natural, but not recognized as a correct translation.
Yes, agreed. Too much English here, though.....This Is=C'est. Is this=Est ce que
I think something is wrong because I translated "robe" as meaning "dress" and it counted it wrong and translated "robe" as meaning "robe"...
what is the diffrent between "ton" and votre"?or it just a diffrent way to call?
Is this pretty black dress yours? says the same thing as "Is this your nice black dress?" ... n'est pas?
this company needs to address the fact that they are asking people to simultaneously be precise and vague with their answers and translations. if the word means something specific then don't use it for something else elsewhere and expect us to anticpate that use. "Jolie" or "Joli" is commonly known as PRETTY in most translations, leave it at that. As beginning French students, we wouldn't know how to translate "LOVELY"!!!
Hi Felix. Yes, bit like the BFG really. However language does this to all of us nomatter what the language. Lovely has, as usual, many translations but most likely is Charmant? (If anyone poached me or my language I'd rather likes it done what's not exact like, at least is is when it's not me who is dong the talking in the time when talking is done. (I said something there, did I? As The BFG might say.) Duo may be a "Company" behind the "facade", (would you call it that?), but here it is a community site. We certainly wouldn't use more than the one exclamation mark on a language-learning site, would we?
This is a question. But the correct translation it show wasn't in that form
It's a bit weird to say it this way. It should be "Est-ce votre jolie robe noire?"
Honestly I'm just fed up because I said "noir" instead of "noire" so I was ONE letter off and it marked the WHOLE thing wrong.... >:(
I said "pretty" instead of "lovely" and got this question wrong. How big of a deal is it that I didn't say "lovely" as the translation?
It's a case of context really Pooleb. Hard to think of a pretty black dress as opposed to a lovely black dress. Yes joli(e) works for both pretty and lovely and if I had programmed Duo I would have had it accept both with a tip to say that in this context, lovely is best expressed as Charnant and if I was a moderator, drawn attention to it at Duo.
This app has conditioned me to see any "jolie robe" as pretty pink dress
And I wrote "is this your beautiful black dress?", and mark as wrong, seriously, as my mother language is not english, is there anydifference between lovely and beautiful or is 'jolie' in french cannot translated as beautiful?
Pretty and lovely are interchangeable in many lessons. Why not this one?
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For someone asking a question the inflection in the woman's voice leaves much to be desired. One does not have the benefit of the ? when it is spoken and we have to translate.
I answered "Is that you black lovely dress?" and wrong, does anyone know why?
How does it matter if we write "lovely black dress" or "black lovely dress"?
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It is not wrong grammatically, but it is wrong nevertheless. Idiomatically, English always puts colour last in a string of adjectives: my big blue eyes; his great purple nose; her long, smooth beautiful, coffee-coloured arms; my very expensive, gorgeous blue dress.
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Which word indicates the possession "your" here? Please someone explain. Thanks in advance!
C'est votre jolie robe noire. Vs C'est votre jolie robe noire? What do there 2 sentances translate into?
