"Les enfants ayant mangé, ils sont allés dormir."
Translation:The children, having eaten, have gone to sleep.
18 Comments
this can't possibly be correct. If I am not mistaken, this sentence is an example of present participle and not gerund. Gerunds in french are mostly introduced by "en" and modify the verb. Present participles modify the noun, like in this sentence. So for one, this sentence doesn't belong in "Gerund" and secondly correct translation should be "the kids who ate went to sleep"
I do see your point here. For a change, "les enfants ayant mangé" is exactly the translation of "the children having eaten".
Alternatives would be: "après que les enfants ont mangé,..." or "après avoir mangé,...les enfants..."
what you propose "the kids who ate went to sleep" is "les enfants qui avaient mangé sont allés dormir" - suggesting that those who had not eaten did not go to sleep.
I think there just needs to be another comma? "The kids, having eaten, went to sleep."
That's the way I'd prefer to say it, though it's a bit different since it leaves out the pronoun that's in the French sentence (not that that is unheard of when translating French to English). I think this sentence is correct in English, it's just awkward-sounding. I almost think it would sound more natural if the second part of the sentence was something that didn't refer to the children again... for example:
"The children having eaten, we went outside."
That's a recurring problem in this lesson, and so far I've never gotten a satisfactory explanation as to the different between french gerunds and participles.
The English sentence can be understood in two ways: "..., they have gone (off to a bedroom) to sleep" and "..., they have fallen asleep." There is a slight difference in the enunciation. I think the second meaning would be "ils se sont endormis."
1870
You never, never, never repeat the subject noun with a pronoun in English. This construction is common in French, but absolutely not in English! You can say, "The children, having eaten, have gone to sleep." It is wrong to put in "they." The commas are needed before and after "having eaten."
Yes, you are right, and if expressed as "The children having eaten, they went to sleep," it would have to have the meaning of "The children having eaten, THEY (THE ADULTS or some "THEY" other than the children) went to sleep."
I assumed that was why "they" was included in the sentence. It seems as if a lot of the sentences in the Gerund section are fragments of conversations or other larger pieces of speech/writing.
"After having eaten,the children went to bed" would sound so much more natural!
- 1870
A gerund is a present participle used as a noun. "Seeing is believing," for example. Technically, this lesson encompasses other uses of the present participle, mostly modifiers of nouns. In French, you often use the preposition "en" which makes the present participle which follows a gerund. Since you don't usually use the preposition in English, the present participle doesn't translate as a gerund.
I put infants and it does not accept it, but it accepts girls, can explain this
I have put infants on occasion for enfants translation. I think it is correct to fail that translation, as it reinforces thinking that they are the same. Duo, as any good instructor, insists we differentiate and learn from the beginning. Regarding girls, I cannot say ... just lucky I think.
So when translated from French to English, gerunds just create very poorly constructed sentences?
Can you use a comma after 'Les enfants' in the French sentence too, like in the English one? Or does French have some other comma rules?
