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- Topic: French >
- "Les hommes sont des enfants."
42 Comments
It's refreshing after having to constantly repeat "I am a man, you are a woman."...which I will never use.
Correct solutions: "The men are some children." This doesn't make sense!
It doesn't make sense in English because the 'some' is a translation of the French partitive article 'des'. It is necessary in French but in English it seems strange. In English you'd just say 'the men are children' or 'men are children'.
I wrote the men are children, which is okay, but it says that "Men are children" is also a correct answer. Why is it correct? It doesn't say des hommes, it says les!
In English you let the noun stand on its own when you want to make a generalization. (Men are children = All men are children, Amsterdam bikes are red = all Amsterdam bikes are red). In French you are not allowed to do that. Instead they use Les hommes sont des enfants whether they mean a particular group of men ( The (those) men are children) or men in general (Men are children). You could of course also use Tous les hommes sont des enfants for expressing that all men are children. You can't really use "des" to make generalizations about a group. Read about the usage of de, du de las and des on http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/de-vs-du-de-la-des.htm
Another example to illustrate the point further: Il n'aimait pas Dieu ; mais les hommes (He didn't love God, but Man)
I don't think I can hear the difference between this phrase and "Les hommes ont des enfants" - think of maybe a group of dads. With the liaison, it sounds similar. Would it sound like "sewn" versus "zone"?
It's hard to hear, but in "Les hommes ont des enfants," the s at the end of hommes sounds like a z, and in "Les hommes sont des enfants," the s sounds like an s.
Ah hahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!! I laughed when I translated this. "Men are children."
I know this doesn't make sense, but I am relearning quite a bit about French grammar.
See the conjugation of "etre" je suis, tu es, il/elle/on est, nous sinnes, vous etes, ils/elles sout
"The men" is a bit like "they (men)" ie, ils, so it will be followed by sont.
You might want to reconsider some of your sentences. Vous voudrez peut-être de reconsidérer certaines de vos phrases.
I didn't really hear the "s" at the end of "des" pronounced in this sentence, but doesn't it get pronounced since the next word begins in a vowel?
I do not get 'des' at all.....like what does it translate into????? It literally seems so random, can someone explain it to me???
