"J'aime le pain, j'adore les baguettes."
Translation:I like bread, I love baguettes.
148 Comments
About two questions ago I once again lost a heart because I forgot to translate the le/la to 'the' and here again it is saying I don't need 'the' before the nouns. I need this explained.
This is a generality: I love bread (in general), j'adore les baguettes (in general).
in English, generality => no article in French, generality => definite article le/la/les
Sitesurf, I'm surprised to be disagreeing with you here, especially since your French is undoubtedly better than mine, but I feel like you might be misrepresenting this.
In terms of generality, I see no difference in saying "I love bread" or "I eat bread" – both thoughts can be completed by (in general).
The key difference, to me, is simply that verbs that have to with liking or disliking (such as "aimer," "adorer," "préférer," "détester," etc.) require the use of the definite articles le/la/les. Can you identify any other situations where the general case uses definite articles?
Perhaps to a native French speaker, it makes sense that when you say "je bois du vin" the wine is "uncountable" rather than "general," and when you say "j'aime le vin" the wine is "general" rather than "uncountable," but I think to the rest of us there is no such distinction in the object, and the distinction of the verb is much clearer.
Would love to hear your thoughts! Appreciate your helpful comments everywhere!
Actually, I don't think you are disagreeing with me here.
It is right that active verbs need the partitive form while "conceptual" verbs rather introduce a generality.
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je prends, j'achète, je mange/bois, je coupe, je sers, je veux, je porte... actually introduce mass quantities (a part of an object I cannot count: food and drinks, sand, air, etc)
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j'aime, j'adore, je préfère, je déteste, je comprends... legitimately introduce "generalities", both on countable and uncountable objects: le vin, les fraises, les êtres humains..., ie everytime you can understand "in general", or "all of them" or "any of them".
In addition, generalities are found in other constructions, for example in a number of statements: les hommes viennent de Mars et les femmes de Vénus, la viande est chère actuellement, le champagne se boit bien frais, le chocolat ramollit quand il fait chaud... In that case, it does not need that the generality concerns countable or uncountable animated or non animated nouns.
Thanks! Great insights. Yes, not quite disagreeing, just trying to approach the same problem with different explanations.
I think that the problem is that for a non-native French speaker, it is still very non-intuitive why the first group of verbs you introduced "prendre," "acheter," etc introduce mass quantities but the second group introduce generalities, since in English we treat them the same way (they both feel like generalities). So when we hear that definite articles are to be used with generalities, we can very confused why "prendre," "acheter," etc are followed by partitive articles. We would never think that "we eat bread" = "we eat a certain quantity of bread."
But I did talk to another bilingual friend who suggests that the first group of verbs (which introduce mass quantities) are ones where you expect them to introduce something physical (things you can buy, eat, wear, see, etc.), whereas the verbs in the second group don't carry the same expectation. That might be a useful distinction.
And yes, it appears that when the noun is a subject, the general sense uses definite articles, as with the examples in your final paragraph.
It's because one can never buy (or eat/cut/have) all the bread (for example), so when one says "je mange le pain", one is not referring to all the bread in general, but some specific bread one is talking about.
But with "aimer", things would be different, when people say they like something, they usually mean they like that kind of thing in general.
That's why.
So "I love some wine" (as in you only like some types of wine, not all of them) woud translate to "j'aime des vins"?
I don't think you would say neither "I love some wine" nor "j'aime des vins". but the meaning you imply, it would rather be "I love some wineS" = "j'aime certains vins".
This is helpful, thanks! I don't get how it relates to 'some' though - I often get confused about when I need to use de/des and when I don't.
DE is partitive (part of sthg) and you use it when the object is not countable:
- je mange du pain (= contraction of "de-le" = a portion of it, not a whole bread)
- je mange de la soupe
DES is the plural of un/une (countable objects) - je mange une fraise, je mange des fraises
I thought that le/la/les referred to specific objects (e.g., "I love THE bread" in English) while du/de/des are used to refer a class of objects in general (e.g, "I love bread" in English)
Actually, it is the opposite.
"I love bread" = j'aime le pain (in general) "I love the bread you make" = j'aime le pain que vous faites (specific = definite)
yes, but in duolingo the use of THE or LE is different. For example, I usually translate "I eat bread" with "Je mange du pain", and "I eat the bread" with "je amnge le pain". And duolingo says it's correct, otherwise it takes me a heart. Can you help me to understand the correct rule?
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The problem is that French requires an article where English does not.
You can refer to the bread meaning the bread on the table.
You can refer to some bread which is not all bread.
You can refer to bread which means all bread in English.
But in French there must be an article. So in French you use the bread again. Only this time you mean all bread the idea of bread, all the bread that has ever been made or will be made (or at least so you think).
Absent context as these Duo phrases usually are, it can be tricky.
That is my understanding of it which has enabled me to preserve hearts in this area.
I understand the confusion here. With verbs that have to with liking or disliking (such as "aimer" and "adorer," as used here, as well as "préférer," "détester," etc.) you always use the definite article (le/la/les) for the general sense.
It's a tricky distinction to make. See my discussion with Sitesurf below to get more insight into when you use which.
[Edited 5/22/2013 to fix some possibly misleading bits]
In previous exercises le and les must always be rendered as the. Why not du pain and des baguettes? Is either acceptable?
Hi Her. We lose count of how many times this has been addressed in so many threads here. Please read them. Aimer=To Love applied to people and pets. Aimer=To Like applied to inanimate things.
Is this a proper sentence in French? In English, "I like bread, I love baguettes" would be a comma splice. There would need to be a conjunction after the comma or the comma would need to be changed to a semicolon. Is this the case in French or is it fine as is?
I was coming here to point this out, too - the comma should have been a semicolon.
Very brave!!! I agree! The semi-colon has gone out of favor on these forums and beyond.....so rarely see it!
Northernguy. Everybody is so so helpful and grammatically way way beyond us Plebs and then you pipe up and just Clear It All Up for us All so very simply! You are an angel. sitesurf deals so brilliantly with the academics and clearly too then you pipe up and explain to us lot who haven't a clue about gerunds and partitives and past participles and make it all quite clear. Thanks pal. Between you and sitesurf this course will sustain.
The translation given is “I like bread, I love baguettes” — is “j’adore” a stronger sentiment in regards to inanimate objects? I read elsewhere that “Je t’adore” is more cutesy/silly than “Je t’aime”, but it seems that the reverse of strength goes for inanimate objects instead of people?
It's more cutesy and silly precisely because it's stronger and feels a bit overblown if taken at face value. In the same way that in Spanish people don't say they "love" their children, they say, literally, that they "want" them.
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When I lived in France, "aimer" is "to like" or "to love" depending on the context... "adorer" never translated as "love"... as a matter of fact, my French boyfriend did not like me "adorer"ing him, but very much liked me "aimer"ing him... just sayin =p
why "i love you" in french always translated to "Je t'aime", but not "Je t'adore" ?
If you are serious about your feelings, you will say "je t'aime".
If you are in a good mood and someone does or say something you particularly like, you can say "je t'adore" without any long term involvement nor deep feeling for that person.
With the same verb, you will say "j'adore ta veste", which of course does not mean you are in love with your friend's jacket.
Othewise, for rules about the various translations of like and love, please go back to Basic2 - Tips&Notes.
The explanation that helped me most with aimer was that if you are using it with a person or animal that will usually be love, if it is for an object (clothes, etc) or an action it will usually be like.
Adorer to me just sounds like (and was likely taken from french) adore in enlish. So when you say "Je t'adore" you are saying you adore that person. A strong admiration of sorts... Not exactly the "I love you" you were looking for, no?
Anybody know why Duolingo accepts some typos but not others? (Marked wrong for accidentally leaving the "e" out of 'bread'.)
Hi claire. Well.... Duo doesn't seem to mind omission/incorrect accents in French but cannot handle spelling mistakes in French.... Hrumpf! Glaring mistakes in English the robot will note. "Brad" just wont do for "Bread". Usually typos in English are tolerated but not always..... welcome to the lottery. Wish I could give you tricks to surmount these but then, you wouldn't be learning a language, would you? Here we are learning "On the street".
So, j'aime is love when referring to people but not things, but j'adore is always love/adoration? Is j'adore romantic love?
As a complement to what JJ said, "adorer" is, strictly speaking, about "adoring gods" in a religious, absolute sense.
But in modern times, the meaning has shifted to a "super-like" meaning, like "j'adore ta veste" = "I love your jacket", which as you can imagine is not religious, nor romantic, but just a strong "feeling/emotion".
If you love your dog, that will not be the same kind of love as the one you feel for your parents, your husband/wife, your kids... But it is in any case a stronger feeling than "liking" someone, which translates to "aimer bien".
"Aimer bien" someone or something is not an enhancement or reinforcement of "aimer". "bien" plays the role of a stabilizer, meant to make listeners sure it is not about love, be it about romance, sex, family or pet love.
Yes but both more and less than that. Applied personally it's romantic. Additionally one may adore an artist(e) from a distance without romance being a component. Applied to pets and things it is not romantic. (That would possibly be illegal! However there are folk who have married a bridge; happened in America and, yes, you knew what was coming didn't you, that's where Duo's sentences are from.) I hope I've not confused you further.
Okay so for those wgo did not understand before hope this helps:
Aimer - to love (a person) -to like (a thing).
Adore - to love a person or thing.
I interpret the sentence as I like bread in general, but I really love baguettes in particular.
How are you supposed to be able to tell it is 'les baugettes' and not 'le baguette' from the recording? It is very difficult..
baugettes is not correctly spelled: les baguettes
singular: la [LA] baguette
plural: les [LEH] baguettes
Le is pronounced [lə] Les is pronounced [le]
And in this case le is not a valid option since baguette is feminine.
In English, we'd use a semicolon to separate the two sentences. Is a comma the correct way to separate these two sentences in French?
Yes, or a full stop. For whatever reason, semicolons are rarely used in French.
Thanks, Sitesurf. I really appreciate your input here and on multiple other threads. Very insightful.
My English teacher, Mary Hogbin (Yes.Calm down. It is an ancient OE name) was electric. I loved her to bits and pieces because she made English Language FUN! She said: "A comma is for a pause to take a breath. A Colon is a channel for something more. A semicolon requires SURGERY! Avoid it if you can."
Love it! The lady sounds like an abdominal surgeon. Good advice in either context.
Yup. I have found with duo if it needs an apostrophe in between you HAVE to put it in. I have tried things like "J aime" and "Jaime" and both were marked wrong until I put that darned apostrophe in.
@GrellSutc14. "J'aime" applied to people/pets="I Love" but applied to inanimate things="I Like". This is why "Adore" was used for the Baguettes. Notice also that in translation to English both articles have been left out. This is because the sentence can be translated as "I like THE bread, I love THE baguettes", or "I like bead, I love baguettes", meaning I like ALL bread and I love ALL baguettes. So two things are being taught in this one sentence.
I love you = je t'aime (human)
I love baguettes = j'adore les baguettes (non-human/pet)
Hi Abigail. Baguette is Baguette in English as you probably know now. They are also called French Sticks. The word Baguette also means many other things in English unrelated to bread.
I just do not understand when j'aime is I love or I like. it is very confusing
I like baguettes = j'aime (bien) les baguettes
I love baguettes = j'adore les baguettes
Can someone differ the strength of adorer and aimer in these circumstances please? Thanks!
Yes, it can be a tad laborious, especially when the posts run into 3 figures! I think that I learn more from these threads than from the actual lessons though. The established contributors really know their stuff. Well worth the time and study IMO. JJ.
And good fun, too. As language students we thrive on conversation, don't we? Thanks, JJ.
I translated "I like the bread, but I love the baguettes" . Graded as a mistake to include "but". Thought it sound more naturally
Your sentence translates to: "L'aime le pain, MAIS j'adore les baguettes" which is why you were marked down. I agree that it does sound a little more natural, but if the word isn't there when it legitimately would be, it is best not to "invent" it.
Thank you, Jackton, I appreciate the comment. I agree with you, the word "mais" is translated as "but". I just tried to translate the sentence literary. Couldn't imagine somebody actually could've talk like a robot - I like bread, I love baguettes. Again, thank you.
I cannot help but be confused by this. Wouldn't this translate to I love bread. I love baguettes?
No, Arghthecat. Aimer causes so much confusion. When applied to people and pets, aimer=Love. (Je t'aime=I love you.) When applied to inanimate things Aimer=Like: (J'aime les baguettes=I like the Baguettes). Their is so much more to this subject. Search about.com/french for more. Or just keep on going through this course and reading the forums, you'll get there. Cordial, JJ.
No, Arghthecat. Aimer when applied to people/pets=Love. So when applied to inanimate things=Like. Adore=Love applied to anything, almost. Tricky thing: "I love you=JeT'aime" Then "I like you=Je t'aime bien". It just is. Search at about.com/french
Jackjon is correct, I did not payed attention that it should be "I like bread, I love baguettes" Actually I thought you, Arghthecat, referring to issue with "mais".
oh no, arghthecat, you are right, the sentence translated as "I love bread. I love baguettes". I made a mistake and tried to translate the sentence literary, as I thought it would go in real life. And Jackjon was kind to explain that I shouldn't venture into what could've been said, but keep it to what it is. I apologize for the confusion.
I read the comments and can't seem to find an answer. If J'aime is I like/I love, why did I get graded a mistake to put 'I love the baguettes?
How do you know when J'aime would be like vs. love. Is love only used when referring to people? I am not sure why I got this wrong.
No, it means "I adore you" which doesn't necessarily have romantic implications. "Je t'aime" means "I love you". This conundrum has been covered fully on this thread, so if you've time, read through it.
@mberman. Oh! Deary deary me. This has been dealt with so many times on this and other threads. Do read them before you post. Aimer is Love when applied to people and pets. It means Like when applied to inanimate things when to express Love one uses Adore. That is the reason for this lesson. It is why both Aimer and Adore were used in the one sentence. Please read the thread before posting.
No. If you would only read the thread you'd see your question answered over an over. Aimer means Love for people and pets. It means Like for inanimate things. Please do read the threads through in future
the definition of baguettes is french sticks and with just sticks you get it wrong
Baguette is a type of French bread, it is the same in English as it is in French.
Kind of... baguettes are more like bread sticks. Where bread is a very general term, baguettes are a specific type of bread. Also, super easy to remember the translation because it is spelt exactly the same in both languages.
No, Yan, incorrect. This has been addressed a few times in this thread, do read it through.
would it be incorrect if you just said 'J'aime pain, j'adore baguettes'?, or would you have to use the le/les?
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You need the definite article. Please read the comments; your question has already been answered.
I swear that aimer means to love and adore is to like. That's what I learned in class and google translate and everything else even the french people I text. Someone please explain this to me.
Hi Cole. If you read through this thread you'll see it explained many times. To re-iterate; Aimer=To Love when applied to people and pets and To Like when applied to things where Adore is used. (Adore also may translate to Adore for people and things depending on context and/or intent.)
Your query is answered just above and many times here in this thread Ilarianesi.
Hi Rose, Baguettes are Baguettes in any language and should certainly be accepted here, it was, when I did the task and every time I've revised it. Alternative names in English are French Sticks, French Loaves.
dear friends!in that time i wrote this answer too but without virgul between two sentenc and refuse .i put this (.)between two sentenc...may i have discution in my telegram ?
Hiya Armin. Is this EXACTLY what you wrote?.... I like bread. I love baguettes Including the full stop?
Since forever Areej. As maybe you know, in given context it also means either Like Or Love. If you read the thread you'd learn and see all this plus if you look at the Duo solution at the top of this page, you'll deduce that Duo evidently has a problem if you were marked down for using Like and corrected to Enjoy. I've learned more from these threds than from the course itself but that does rquire reading them even though there is kack and clutter to wade through, it is worth it.
I thought j'aime was I love and j'adore was I adore. There was no choice for the word adore.
This is a stupid thing to say! I put i love bread i love bread. This is too confusing with i like and love and stuff
Call a language some thousands of years old and used globally which has a large influence on so many other languages "Stupid", Juicy, if you will but I'll mention something about Stupid things in language in a moment. If only you'd read the thread here you'd see that Aimer; Love/Like has been addressed so many times, so please read this thread. I'm not saying that not reading the thread is stupid but I'd consider myself less than bright if I didn't read the threads. I've learnt as much, if not more from them than from the lessons themselves. There are some wizard helpers here who really know their onions (and their grammar). Nowthen mate "Stupid?" English Language developed in England over many centuries with Celtish, Germanic French and Romanic influences to what it is today, and is used as the International Language of all Air Traffic globally. Then, in America, one man, Noah Webster, thought he knew better and changed words and spellings. So for an example, in England we have a Lift to go both up and down a multi-storey building. Because of gravity Lift is needed whether one is going up or coming down. Ask any Pilot. Figures and check? In America they have an Elevator and somehow, as if by magic, they can go up in an Elevator, fine, fine; but then they Come Down in an Elevator? How do they do that? How? Is it magic or is the language sometimes "stupid" as you say?
It says J'aime le pain, j'adore les baguettes.... And that means I love the bread, I love the baguettes... It says i got it wrong and that the answer is I enjoy the bread, I love the baguettes... IT SAYS I LOVE THE BREAD NOT I ENJOY THE BREAD.... Am I wrong people??????
With respect Parker you are incorrect. Read this thread, is has been addressed so many times.
Hello Maria. Your query has been addressed so many times here. Please read the forums Every Time before you post.
I wrote that "J'aime le pain" is "I love bread" and Duo said it was wrong and that I should have typed "like". But when I was in France, locals told me that "J'aime" means "love" and I must always use "j'aime bien" for like. When I said "j'aime" instead of "j'aime bien" the French I was with went into a hushed whispered tone with each other before putting me out of my misery and explaining that I should always use "j'aime bien" for "like".
It accepted that I put an article before bread and had no article left for baguettes. Leave out the articles all in all if they are not needed in the English translation , or make it 'wrong' to put an article in front of bread
I think the english translation for j'adore can't be just ' like'. Maybe something like 'I die for baguettes' would come closer?
My one question ... How can i tell its a plural sentence, " le bauguette" and "les baguette" sound alike .... If its was "des baguettes", then ill understand
It should accept I like the bread i love the baguettes, if it uses LE/LES instead of Du/des
