"His pants are falling down."
Translation:Il perd son pantalon.
58 Comments
Or get a belt. My pants had that tendency until I got a belt, what with apparently losing a bit around the waist.
hey sitesurf , why can't we say son pantalon est tomb ? as it would make more sense when saying his pants ARE falling down .
"son pantalon est tombé" (= his pants have fallen down/fell down) means that the pants are already on the floor. It is passé composé.
"his pants are falling down" is continuous present tense (that does not exist in French), to be translated to : "son pantalon tombe" or "son pantalon est en train de tomber".
one question im not a native english speaker but i don't sure if falling down means also losing something . anyone could give some feedback ?
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Losing ones pants could refer to losing them from one's body, thus falling down. Generally, falling down and losing are not the same thing, but your pants falling down is a method by which you could lose your pants, so it works.
I agree that this is fairly idiomatic and can be confusing for non-native speakers. 'Losing' something can also mean that the thing in question is slipping away or diminishing, often despite one's best attempts to prevent it from doing so. "I'm losing control", "I've lost my grip", "They're losing their lead", "We're losing the patient", and so on. So here, the phrase "He's losing his pants" does indeed mean that his pants are falling down, but it also suggests that the pants may be falling down despite the wearer's efforts to keep them up.
I agree with BlackHeart01. It doesn't make much sense as a literal translation! Hard for non-native English speakers. :/
In this scenario in the present tense, "losing my/your/his/her pants" would refer to the act of the pants falling down right now. It would be like if someone wore pants that were too big for them and they were sliding off, you could say "look, he is losing his pants!" Or "Look, his pants are falling down!" And it would mean the same thing.
Pants (in English) are plural while a pair of pants is singular. In French, I am seeing son pantalon and ses pantalons while refering to a single pair of pants. How do you know when to use the singular vs the plural? Is there a rule?
So what does the real meaning of "il perd son pantalon" here? Does this mean he is holding his pants and suddenly drops it? Or does this mean he is in the action of taking off his pants? Thanks.
It means that his pants are probably a couple of sizes too big for him and that he does not have suspenders or a belt to hold it above his hips.
"Ses pantalons tombent" means that his multiple pairs of pants are falling down, but the English sentence almost certainly refers to the one pair of pants that he is wearing, which is "son pantalon" in French. I think "Ses pantalons tombent" could be correct if you're referring to a stack of pants on top of a dresser though.
yes, "il perd" = he loses, but here the meaning is not that he cannot find his pants anymore.
What about "Son pantalon tombent à bas."? I put it and it was wrong, but I can't find out why!
son pantalon tombe
ses pantalons tombent
"à bas" does not work here, it is rarely used and nearly with figurative phrase "mettre à bas" = to ruin/delete/destroy...
Who writes this stuff?? His pants are falling down??? Ladies and gentlemen, Duolingo is starting to get weird!
How would I say "His pants" exactly? In French, I know you can't do possessives this way, so I assume it would be something like "The pants of he" (as uncomfortable as that would be in English). So, grammatically, how would French speakers make a possessive with a pronoun?
In French, we do have plenty of possessive adjectives:
je: mon, ma, mes
tu: ton, ta, tes
il/elle/on: son, sa, ses
nous: notre, nos
vous: votre, vos
ils/elles: leur, leurs
So, "his pants" = son pantalon (masculine singular)
Oh, right. I knew that... I don't know why I got confused... Maybe it's non-pronouns (that is, regular nouns) that I was thinking about... I.e., "Le poche de la chemise"
Lol. That is indeed quite a lot. Many more than English. So I was wondering if "The pants of he."(if anything like this phrase can exist) would translate to "Le pantalon de il".
This sentence (i.e. "Ses pantalons tombent.") means that his multiple pairs of pants are falling down and that is not what the required answer is (The sentence provided by duolingo says that only one pair of pants are falling down.). Coming to "Ses pantalons tombent", "sont" is not necessary (in fact, not allowed in correct French)because "tombent" itself means "are falling/fall". That kind of an expression (probably?) doesn't exist in French.
French does not have a distinct verb form for present progressive. The present-tense form ‘perd’ is used both for present progressive “is losing” and the simple present “loses” — including the punctual present, generic present, and narrative present. If you want to emphasize the progressive nature of the action, use the paraphrase ‘en train de’, as in ‘Il est en train de perdre son pantalon.’ = “He's in the process of losing his pants.”.
Wait a second... il perd son pantalon = he loses his pants... not his pants are falling down...
Why do jeans not count as pants? Is it a cultural difference, or a mistake? I ask because in Australia, jeans would be considered synonymous with pants. Thanks in advance.
I'm struggling quite a bit because I'm getting a lot of these that i haven't seen before and that are either without the translation drop downs or when they are there then the means to get the answer aren't for example when i learned 'On ne qu'une fois(still not 100% sure that is right?) I only got it through trial and error because it wasn't shown at all in any part of the translations, just a minor thing but it can get a bit annoying
Trial and error is at the core of Duo's teaching method. Reading sentence discussions helps to get the grammar and syntax. You can ask precise questions here and you will get answers. Once you have perfectly understood how to get the answer, they you should redo the lesson, and several times, so that what you have understood actually prints into your mind.
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Well this is very useful! Once I get to France, I'll go tell everyone XD
I have had it with this site, in the dictionary "perdu" is lost, fall down is "tomber" all I want to do is get by in France, however it seems to me that you have to second guess most things on here, also there are so many instances on Tu, Ta and so on but you have to know some one very well before you can use the informal so the main thrust should be to use the formal "vous" and so on, however most sentences now seem to use the informal but I have yet to come across one instance on the use of "on" which is not informal as such but is widely used instead of "nous", it seems a lot of effort is wasted here in trying to be somehow grammatically perfect and not to actually be able to converse in French to the level that you can make yourself understood.
Doesn't 'perd' in this sentence simply mean, 'to lose'? In what context can it translate to the given sentence in this item? Or is the program mistaken? Help please... RSVP :) ;)
