Forum Comments - Duolingo

Topic: French

"The children read the animals' names."

Translation:Les enfants lisent les noms des animaux.

February 3, 2013

10 Comments

DuFarge

Why can't it be "d'animaux'? Is this not done?

February 3, 2013

bucko

The possessive 'de' contracts with 'les' to form 'des'. Imagine the sentence was 'the children read the names of the animals', which word-for-word in French is 'les enfants lisent les noms de les animaux', but in reality the 'de' and 'les' contract.

February 3, 2013

RLintner

This sounds like something to remember...I thought there would be a difference between des - some - and de les - these ones in particular.

August 24, 2014

farid.ouhmich

"Les enfants lisent le nom des animaux" It is wrong?! We can say it?!

March 25, 2013

wiredpsyche

It should be "les noms", not "le nom".

April 18, 2013

Gemobis

Le nom pas les noms. Un animal = un nom

September 5, 2014

laslliw

The word "read" in English is both past and present tense

September 17, 2014

hanjini

Yes, it would easily be read as the past tense, ils ont lu

December 1, 2014

Marc40947

Je suis d'accord, cet phrase est ambiguë sans contexte et il pourrait traduire "Les enfants lisents ... " ou "Les enfants ont lu ..."

October 28, 2018

Gemobis

Les noms n'est pas faux, mais ici c'est du nom de chaque animal que l'on parle . Un animal , un nom

September 5, 2014