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- "Which horse is black?"
"Which horse is black?"
Translation:Quel cheval est noir ?
26 Comments
It is wrong because you have the noun "cheval" which "lequel" as a pronoun would replace. The adjective form "quel" must be used to modify the noun.
When "what" precedes or otherwise modifies a noun, you need to use quel (which literally means "which"). http://french.about.com/od/mistakes/a/what.htm
In the last question it told me "Lequel" means which. Why does it wrong in this sentence?
"Which" in English serves both as an adjective and a pronoun.
As with other adjectives, when "which" is an adjective, it must be paired with a noun, as in this example of "which horse is black?" In French, the adjective form of "which" is quel/quelle/quels/quelles.
As a pronoun, "which" is not paired with a noun. For example, if we were already talking about some horses, you could ask, "which is black?" or "which one is black?" In French, the pronoun form of "which" is lequel/lequelle/lesquels/lesquelle. Thus, "which is black?" would translate to "lequel est noir?"
Thank you for explaining (I'm very lost w the grammar). And just clarifying the pronoun forms... lequel / laquelles for singular? lesquels / lesquelles for plural?
I wish this program would teach us the rules before they test you. Am I missing something?
Why couldn't I state "Quelle cheval est noire? For the sake of assuming all were female horses? I don't think you stipulated we had to assume all were male, or a mix of male/female.
"Celui" means "This one " or "That one ". (Demonstrative pronoun as in "this one here" or "that one there") Out of context I'd be guessing "que" can mean "that " as a conjunction (relative pronoun?) which is introducing a subordinate clause about "celui".
Firstly, all nouns need modifiers, so "cheval" can't just hang out without one. Secondly, this is close to saying "Which is a black horse?", but you'd need "lequel" for that. "Lequel est un cheval noir?" Thirdly, "which is a black horse?" isn't the sentence you need to translate. http://french.about.com/od/mistakes/a/what.htm
Quel est le cheval noir? --- I used this one. Literally it means Which is the black horse. I don't understand why it is wrong
I think quel is an adjective, so it has to be modifying a noun. What you would want to use is 'Lequel est le cheval noir?'.
Why can't I use "Quelle chevale est noire"? Why did it is mark it as wrong or was it a mistake on duolingo?
Can someone tell me what the translation of "which" is in french? Duolingo says its "qui" but i thought "qui" meant "who?"
Anyway i had to put "quel" in order to get this right
"Which" when used as an adjective with a noun that it is describing is "quel", "quelle", "quels" or "quelles" depending on whether it is singular masculine or feminine, or plural masculine or feminine.
Now when "which" is used as a pronoun, sometimes it is "which one" or "which ones", and at times if you are talking about which person that would be the same as "who", but without context it could as easily be which thing and then "who" would not be applicable. The French pronouns for these would be "lequel", "laquelle", "lesquels" or "lesquelles" depending on whether it is singular masculine or feminine, or plural masculine or feminine. The pronouns are used instead of the nouns. http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/adjectives_interrogative.htm http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/lequel.htm
Do we not need to put a modifier in front of the noun here? i.e. Quel du cheval est noir? or Quel le cheval est noir
Quel has a built-in modifier so no more is needed.
"Quel" for singular masculine words which take "le".
"Quelle" for singular feminine words which take "la".
"Quels" for plural masculine words which take "les".
"Quelles" for plural feminine words which also take "les".
My first instinct was to translate the sentence as "Quel cheval est noir?"but quel was not an option in the dropdown definition provided by Duolingo.
