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- "I am eating rice."
"I am eating rice."
Translation:Je mange du riz.
34 Comments
Can't you also just say Je mange riz? Otherwise it should be "I'm eating some rice"? Or do you HAVE to add something before it in French?
There's a grammatical difference between French and English when it comes to uncountable things. Basically you wouldn't say "I am eating apple", you would say "I am eating an apple". The same thing applies in French, but it applies to things that are uncountable as well. "Some rice." "Some wine." That sort of thing.
"Apple" isn't an uncountable noun though, so this wouldn't be the best example.
Mange is used when its in front of it is "Je" ( I ) Manges is used when its in front of "tu" ( you ) . You can find charts for this type of verb. Their "er" verbs because when its infinitive form, "manger" (to eat) ends in er.
Du = de + le. It's not plural! Plural would be des = de + les. It means you are eating some rice, not THE (certain amount of/certain) rice or A (only one) rice. Un riz is a rice and le riz is the rice. The preposition de is used (beside many other situations) when you want to say you are eating some of the cake (du gâteau), not the whole cake (le gâteau). You can also order something in a restaurant with de: Je prends du gâteau, s'il vous plaît = I take cake, please. You wouldn't just go and order THE cake or ONE whole cake, right? :)
'un' or 'une' would mean 'one'. Since rice would normally be considered an uncountable noun, you can't eat one rice.
In French, je mange means both I eat and I am eating. There is no need to put in suis here.
French would probably think you are trying to say: J'ai mangé, which means: I have eaten. French use this instead of I ate. As said above, je mange means I am eating and I eat. If you want to highlight the fact, that something is happening now, say je mange maintenant (=I eat now) or je suis en train de manger. This literally means: I am eating. The construction is: Être en train de+inf. of the main verb. Être must be conjugated, je suis, tu es, il est...
"Je" is a pronoun whereas "j'ai" is the "je" conjugation of the verb "avoir (to have)".
what is the diffrecnce from mange and manges I forgot
(please do not put anything mean below because everybody forgets sometimes...Thx ( :)
You use j' when the next word starts with a vowel - and an 'h' often counts as a vowel (which is why l'homme)
Why is Je mange de la riz, incorrect? I have seen both de la used and du used in different places. When do you know which to use?
du before a masculine word, eg. Je mange du pain; Je mange du riz; de la before a feminine word, eg. Je mange de la salade;
"Du" is the contraction of "de + le". Because rice is masculine, you wouldn't use "de la" and would instead use "du"
In french, there isnt a special progressive present tense. Instead, you use the normal conjugation. "Je mange du riz" can be translated as "I eat rice" or "I am eating rice."
