44 Comments
There have not been a lot of examples of lisason (leading a vowel-beginning word with the trailing consonant from the word before). Really hard for someone very new to French to hear this correctly without some knowledge of that spoken-word feature of the language.
I couldn't figure out what an "aintille" or "aimtille" could possibly be.
The correct pronounciation is AIM_T_IL. By the way in the singular form, a T is added to ease the sound flow again: aime-t-il = AIM_T_IL, ie exactly the same sound.
How do you differentiate “which ones do they like” and “which ones like them?”
Which ones do they like? = Lesquels/Lesquelles aiment-ils/elles ?
Which ones like them? = Lesquels/Lesquelles les aiment ?
I believe that the the 't' is pronounced because you are conjoining two words that end and start with a vowel. It's like saying a apple instead of an apple.
Very hard to understand the sound of "aiment-ils" We 've got to have the ear trained to the diferents sounds...Please, speak I bit slowly ...thanks a lot!
Perhaps you spelled something else wrong. But at least you knew what you were doing!
The reason is that "aiment-ils" and "aime-t-il" are pronounced the same way.
Homophones are not always recognized by the system when sentences are dictated. Let's be patient until the Duo team finds a way to solve this issue.
There is a difference in pronunciation between lequel (/ləkɛl/; singular "which one") and lesquels (/lekɛl/; plural "which ones"). Maybe that's where you're getting it wrong.
I'm not sure if this is happening to anyone else - but I had to say this into my headset at least 20 times and I still got it wrong. This has happened with other lessons too and my pronunciation is usually quite good.
Yes, I have that problem too. Not only with this particular one, but any question with verb-sujet pattern. Something wrong with Duo speech recognition capability
Can this still be translated as love or should we use this exclusively as like and adorer as love?
Good question and I've wondered this myself. I think in some previous lessons I translated "aime" as "love", and got it marked wrong, despite the hover indicating that it should be correct
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Aime and adorer can both mean love. Aime can also mean like. Adorer can also mean worship.
Aime and adore are not exactly the same thing although sometimes they are interchangeable.
In English, adore is sometimes used to express something a lot more than like but explicitly not romantic love.
The Duo computer has difficulty identifying the exact nature of some mistakes. Eg: if you write la eau it will identify your failure to contract it to l'eau. As a result, the error report won't tell that the correct answer called for du lait. If you closely at the correct answer at the top of the page you will notice your mistake. But if you just look at the answer report it can mislead you as to where your real mistake was.
The machine is notorious for identifying article gender and number errors when the real problem was the selection or spelling of the noun. Same holds true for the appropriate pronoun use with the verb when, again, it's the verb that is the problem.
Students may see the error report, not notice that they made a small typo that changed the verb or noun from the correct answer. They end up believing that they were told to always use feminine form with a particular masculine noun. But that's because they inadvertently typed in a feminine noun spelling. Later they are surprised when they adhere to the correction and again are marked wrong.
If you were supposed to enter la pomme and actually entered la pain it will tell you to use le because that is what is appropriate for what you wrote. Of course if you had actually written le pain it would have marked you wrong because it is the wrong noun.
It sees a mistake and stops and says "look a mistake". It doesn't go any further.
The auxiliary verb "do" only exists in the English translation and doesn't carry over into French. As far as I know, French only has two auxiliary verbs -- être and avoir. So, you need "do" in the English sentence to make it grammatical.
I've tried repeating this sentence a million times and it keeps saying I'm wrong. Haven't had any issues with the lessons until this ONE repetition. It won't let me finish without saying properly and even though i think I'm saying it correctly it keeps saying I'm wrong. Driving me crazy!
This is so infuriating. I've said it upwards of 60 times and it keeps saying I've got it wrong!
because "whom" does not mean the same thing as "which ones". The latter implies a choice among several objects, the former does not.
"Whom do they like?" was marked incorrect. Anyone else think this should be an accepted translation?
"Whom" is the objective case of "who", which is only used for people. "Which" or "which ones" can cover objects, animals, or people.
is it any way to know the difference between lequel and lesquels? (because "lequel aiment ils" would be right, right?
you should not have a problem with lequel vs lesquels, since "le" (leuh) is different from "les" (lé).
the only ambiguity should be "lesquels" (masc plur) vs "lesquelles" (fem plur), since they are pronounced exactly the same way.
Lequel is /ləkɛl/, but this sentence uses the plural lesquels, which is /lekɛl/ (like "léquels").
I believe that Lesquels aime-t-il? as well as lesquelles aime(ent)-t-il(s) would sound the same, no?
Yes, they would since "lesquels/lesquelles" and "aiment-ils/aime-t-il" are homophones. But you did not get this sentence in dictation (type what you hear), did you?
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These tests that require spoken input are USELESS unless they explain what was wrong or (as used to be the case) we can preplay what we said.
