- Forum >
- Topic: French >
- "Ils boivent du vin."
48 Comments
I struggle to hear the difference between "il boit" and "ils boivent". Is the "v" sound the only phonetic difference?
The verb Boire is irregular in it's pronunciation. It most cases regular verbs for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 3rd person plural sound the same in the present infinitive.
Je mange, Tu manges, Il/Elle/on mange, Ils/Elles mangent <= All these sound the same when spoken.
In the particular case with Boire, 3rd person plural boivent has the "v" sound. 1st person, 2nd person and 3rd person singular sound the same except for 3rd person plural.
Another example is the verb Prendre. Je prends, tu prends, il/elle prend all sound the same. Except for the 3rd person plural: Ils/Elles prennent. With Je prend your lips make a sort of O shape, and with Ils prennent the corners of your mouth move farther apart.
why does 'vin' have 'du' before it? why can't it just be 'ils boivent vin' instead of 'ils boivent du vin'?
am I the only one who is mixing "il" with "elle"... is it me or the speaker, I can't tell for sure?!
The only difference is that 'e' has the same sound as 'egg'. And 'il' has the same sound as 'ink'.
Now all my mistakes are: Il - Ils & Elle - Elles, theysound me the same. Any tips?
The conjugation of the verb can help you. If not, Duo will accept one or the other.
- il boit, elle boit - ils boivent, elles boivent: here you should hear the V
- il mange, elle mange - ils mangent, elles mangent: here, you won't hear any difference.
lol I spelled wine wrong....IN ENGLISH !!! Wow I should be studying English even more now...
"du" is the partitive article contracted from "de+le". It is used in front of a masculine singular noun starting with a consonant to mean "some".
"de la" is the feminine partitive article, to be used in front of a feminine, singular noun starting with a consonant to mean "some".
"de l' " is the masculine or feminine partitive article to be used in front of a noun starting with a vowel sound (vowel or non aspirate H).
What is the difference between this sentence and "Ils boivent le vin"? Is the second one just noting that they are drinking "the wine", like a particular one, instead of "some wine" or just "wine"?
Can it also be translated as "they drink the wine"? I don't understand why it is 'some' and not 'the' in the translation. 'Some' sounds very specific to me.
It does mean something. It means 'some'.
In English, you can say "they drink wine" or "they drink some wine", but in French, you have no choice, you have to use the partitive article "du": "ils/elles boivent du vin".
It must've taken me 3 or for listenings before I caught the "v" sound in boivent. Which I thought meant plural which I didn't know how to hear in "il"
I had to make a guess and just assume it was "ils boivent"
second part I thought they said "du pain" which is bread and I knew bois meant drink. Drinking bread sounded wrong, so I realized they said "vin"
Everything connected and I got the answer right. It honestly took longer than necessary, but the journey was fun~ ^^
Not all letters are pronounced, but correct spelling requires all of them.
By the way, "ven" is not a French word: either "vin" (wine) or "vent" (wind) and the pronunciation is different.
Apparently I have the worst listening skills of all time for French. The whole thing sounded Mushmouth to me unfortunately:-(
Is there anything out there that can improve listening skills for individual syllables in French?
Hi, The options given are not the correct answer. I cant able to go next level. Kindly help me out
We need details to help you: which kind of exercise did you get? which were the options? what did you submit? what was the computer-checker's reaction?
If "ils boivent du vin" is "they are drinking wine" then how would we say "they drink wine" ? Or since I'm a beginner, should i ignore the grammar for now?
Since the French language does not have continuous tenses, "ils boivent du vin" can mean either "they are drinking wine" or "they drink wine". Context would tell which meaning it is.
However, when the French really want to describe an on-going action, they can say "ils sont en train de boire du vin", which exactly means "they are drinking wine".
My answer to Ils was to specify that it was masculine answer ie that it was males who were doing the drinking - Is this wrong? do I not bother to specify?
I said, "they drink wine," and the answer was no good. It said the correct answer is, "they are drinking wine." What's the difference? Is the program wrong?
I think she's drinking wine, weird as the audio is. Wow, what happened there?
