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- "Nous aimons notre chien."
111 Comments
It's because the cyborg lady puts her accents in all the wrong places to what real people do. Don't worry, listening to native speakers is actually easier than this. So if you get good at listening to her, you'll be freakin' awesome at listening to real people.
Isn't this kind of bad for someone learning? I feel like listening to someone put the accents in all the wrong places could form some bad habits later on down the road.
I've never really understood why a language learning website wouldn't hire a professional speaker to say these phrases. It's not like there are that many varied phrases...
It's not all in the wrong spots - i'll admit to exaggerating, but it is much harder trying to listen to her than native speakers. And i don't know. There's another website where you can actually get native speakers to grade tests designed by the website but i found the interface too tricky and the learning curve too slow (although probably more thorough!). I can't remember the name though :/ EDIT: Livemocha.com
chien = /ʃjɛ̃/, chat = /ʃa/
So if you hear a /j/ sound, it's a dog, otherwise it's a cat.
You can also compare the sounds of these two words in your vocabulary:
Nos is for many things, notre for one. E.g. notre chien (our dog) nos chiens (our dogs)
Yes! and if a word ends in an s (nouns, adjectives etc )the word is always plural and everything else in the sentence (apart from prepositions) have to end in s. 'S', endings are usually always plural.
Well Janette, your post is very helpful. Thank you. I'm retired now but I used to drive the pioneering coach services from England to France in the late 1960's. You've delightfully covered your posterior at the end of your post by inserting the word "Usually". I don't recall how many thousands of times I used "Le Bus" (Singular) and L'Autobus" (Singular) nouns. Better add here that Le Bus is singular but the plural is Les Bus and so the guide is always in the article, not the noun.
I heard it as "notre chienne" rather than "notre chien". How do I tell the difference?
in chien n is not pronounced clearly , but in chienne it is a clear distinct n at the end. So it's kind of [shja~] and [shjen]
Yeah, but the computer lady doesn't really make that distinction well at all. I definitely heard "chienne"
I listened to the audio a dozen times including the slower version - I absolutely do not hear an N sound in "notre".
I can't help you there. I hear it clearly for what it's worth. I've experienced audio problems with the German lessons where native speakers say the audio is fine (in this case for the pronunciation of the word "Bett"), but for a small handful of us it is garbled (I hear an "s" sound superimposed over the "tt" in "Bett"). I don't know if it has something to do with broswers or what. Click the option for "the audio is bad" and move on. Hopefully it's only an issue for this lesson for you.
There is no difference in pronunciation in in this sentence, but if it was plural it wouldn't be "notre chien", rather "nos chiens".
Hope that helps!
Thank you! I was wondering what the difference was between nos and notre lol
Can this not also be "We love our dog"? After all, in previous lessons it stated that "J'aime" can mean both "I like" and "I love".
It does. One could possibly argue that in this sentence it only means "love" and not "like" at all. http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/aimer.htm
I've been taking the lessons for over 6 months, and i stll have trouble hearing the difference. chat / chien
Hello wongni. Notre, followed by a Singular noun of either gender.... Nos followed by a Plural noun: Notre chein; Nos chiens.
I got the multiple choice version of this. Can anyone explain to me what the difference between notre and nos is? I believe they both mean "our", but when are you supposed to use which.
Hi Tanytopi and Zclawren. Now that I am more acquainted with the pronunciation, I "clearly" hear the difference. May I suggest that you go to Google translate, type in Chien and Chat together and listen to them over a hundred times. (It IS what I did). Then come back here and see if you don't "hear" a difference? 5 Euros on it that you will!
I put in chienne which is, as i understanf, a female dog. How is this wrong? what if my dog IS female?
Ahh booo. I wrote nous aimons l'autre chien, that's what I heard. I should have realized it was the possessive section
I am hearing a space in notre, making it sound more like "no trochien" - thoughts anyone?
You have a good ear. That's exactly what it should sound like. http://french.about.com/od/pronunciation/g/linking.htm
Enchaînement is the phenomenon whereby the consonant sound at the end of a word is transferred to the beginning of the word that follows it. Note that enchaînement is not the same thing as liaison.
Because there is only one dog Notre chien Nos Chiens Our dog, Our Dogs. The possessive in French agrees with the objective noun here.
Notre=Our, preceding a singular noun and is used for either masculine or feminine. "Notre chien=Our dog".... Nos=Our preceding a plural noun. "Nos chiens=Our dogs".
Hi Martin. It can't be Nos Chien because Nos is the plural form of Notre. Here it is Notre because there is only the one dog. If there were more than one dog, then it would be Nos ChienS.
i had to listen for "notre" five times i kept hearing something like "leutre"
Notre before a singular noun (here "Chien") Nos before a plural noun (Like CheinS.
Notre=Our One, Single chien (dog)... Nos=Our more than one dog, many dogs.chienS The possessive relates to the object, not the subject. So "We" don't affect the possessive. One or more dogs DO. So"My dog"="Mon chien". "My DogS"="MES chienS". "Our Dog"="Notre Chien" and "Our DogS"=NOS ChienS".
@Jianalouis. Notre=Our before either a feminine or masculine singular noun. Nos=Our before a plural noun. There is a whole array of these possessives to learn. Try about.com/french grammar possessives and scroll for them all.
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Hi! I translated it as" We like our dog" and it is marked as incorrect. I got solution " We love our dog". How can I say "like" in French if aimons means only "love". Pretty confused, as I have impression that aimer was translated previously as "like". Thanks for answer!
- 1207
I have translated "Nous aimons notre chien" into "We like our dog". It was wrong. Duolingo's answer was: "We love our dog". Is this really correct?
I'm sorry mate but when I first looked at your query it was repeated NINE times over in a row?!, so my response was sarcastic. Now as I return to it, it is there just the once. To your query, what I learn from Sitesurf is when "aimer" is applied to people unmodified, it means love When applied to other "things" it means like. Maybe I've not fully taken in detail that Sitesurf had explained or maybe Duo is doing its inconsistency thingy which happens sometimes. I've not experienced being marked down whenever I've used "Like" when I've translated Aimer verb with all other than people. Maybe if you go to Remy, Northernguy ThanKwee or Sitesurf activity they will explain much more proficiently. Sorry that you had to repeat your question but maybe you can see the funny side of my first response to a question repeated nine times in succession? Cordial, JJ.
- 1207
No problem. Actually they were 9 lines but I have not been aware of it. When I posted my question it was only one line :) It might have been some system error. Thanks to your first answer I could notice rest 8 lines and delete them. Turning back to my question, the funny thing is that here in the title translation is: "We like our dog." When I translated it the same words I got error :)
Thanks for your patience and geniality. When silly things like that happen please go to "report a problem" as well as coming to these threads for discussion. What I think has happened is that the moderators have got around to the discrepancy and corrected it since you did the task. Another possibility is that one of the other tasks for the self-same lesson marks differently. Who knows? Now then, since dear Sitesurf has been on board to hone Duo's tasks, changes and corrections get done pretty smartly and that may be a factor here. I note how many languages you study here. Apparently there are fewer flaws and better audio on the other courses than French.Is this true?
"aimer" is often translated in a different way in this lesson. How am I supposed to understand if "love" or "like" is needed in this case? The same goes for "femme", it either is translated as "woman" or "wife" but never as both.
I actually heard "Nous aimons les trois chiens", but maybe it's just me? Oh well.
What is bothersome about duolingo is there are no actual lessons. Everything is trial and error it seems. So i don't understand when to use nos as opposed to notre. I'm guessing it has to do with sing/plur, is that correct?
I don't know when to use the NOS and when to use the NOUS. Can anyone give me a pointer? Thanks!
it gets annoying, and before you post it says please do not report mistakes. it is mostly because of her accent
Hi Katy. With respect you are wrong. Nous aimons notre chien=We love our dog, as per sentence task and solution. Vous aimez votre chien=You love your dog which differs from the given text of the sentence task.
Hi Chloegee. Nous=We Nos=Our eg Nous aimons L'art: We like (the) art. Nous aimons Nos art: We like Our art.
I don't know why it says "Nous" is "Our" first, it's not "Our like our dog" it's "We like our dog."
Hi Future. Whatever it says, Nous=We and Notre=Our. At least at this stage in the course and grammar. End of.
Spent way too much time repeating this. I'm pretty sure I was saying is right but the "votre chien" kept on going red..
Hi Justin. You're not alone. As with ALL voice recognition tools the audio only is very unreliable. It';s not a fault unique to Duo, it's just that voice recognition just drowns in its own juice. I've seen so many complaints here about this so I went on it for a trial and when I had to speak out the task, I blew a raspberry into the mic and was marked correct! I hasten to add again, that this syndrome is universal and not unique to Duo.
Shouldn't "Notre" have an "r" sound at the end? It sounds like she is saying "note"
So, if I wanted to describe this clearly as "we like our dog" it would be "nous aimons bien notre chien"?
