"Tu manges les crêpes et tu bois du vin."

Translation: You eat the crepes and you drink wine.

[shriramk]

What did I fail to hear that invalidated the version with "le crêpe"? Perhaps it's "la crêpe" and the "le" sound was the indication it was a "les" and hence "crêpes"?

[Sitesurf]

"crêpe" is a feminine word: la crêpe (singular), les crêpes (plural)

[dultagh1]

Intresting combination

[Sitesurf]

The most frequent combination is crêpes + cider (both specialities from Brittany).

[goldy729]

I wrote "You are eating the crepes and drinking wine". It wanted "You are eating the crepes and drink wine". It was always my understanding that present simple and present continuous are identical and French, unlike the English equivalent. I believe my answer should have been correct.

[AlexCGuest]

Pancakes and wine? Cool.

[Chefie]

'les' or 'des' - both possible

[Sitesurf]

No, "the" is the definite article to be translated by the French definite article "les".

[christhor]

is it me or is the "S" almost imposable to hear at the end of a word ???

[Sitesurf]

Generally final -s in plural words are mute. the exception is when there is a word starting with a vowel just after:

• les amis : LAY-Z-AMI

[Poppy321123]

you are not supposed to, it is silent, but you can tell by who it is referring to, so tu, je, etc.

[barretttemplar]

cigar and a crepe

[Kenji255]

Austin Powers

[sw5230]

tu bois du vin, means some wine.
but du=de+le

so not why can't I say the wine?

[Sitesurf]

because "the wine" is not "du vin" but "wine" or "some wine"

"de", contracted in "du" means that you drink "a certain quantity of"
"le" only means a specific wine (the one that is on the table for example)

[melsin]

is there any rhyme or reason for accent marks. Or is it just memorization?

[Sitesurf]

Unfortunately, you have to learn the suitable accents with each word.

[Wunel]

Yup, there's a pretty reliable pattern you can work out, not perfect but fairly consistent>
http://french.about.com/od/pronunciation/a/accents.htm

[SangitaBha1]

Why do you spell crepe with ê?

[Sitesurf]

Because in old French, there was an S after the E (crespe), and beforehand, the Latin word was "crespus".

[DebraRae2]

It appears that I have translated it correctly but you say it was wrong. Why?