This is what I understood too: "Is your pretty dress black?"

exactly

Agreed - this should also be a correct translations. It is essentially the exact same question as the main right answer.

Thank you!

I literally typed this and it says im wrong

there is no difference

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.

Yes it certainly can Grant. Report it.

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...

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).

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.

Yes the "est-ce" way is preferable over this one.

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.

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'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".

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.

Noir to describe a masculine noun and Noire to describe a feminine noun.

That's exactly what it does say.

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!).

Votre is more formal than Ta which is familiar. They both mean "Your"

Yes, agreed. Too much English here, though.....This Is=C'est. Is this=Est ce que

Report it. Robe, at least here=Dress

cute = mignon

The solution is in this thread, please read it.

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?

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.

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.