- Forum >
- Topic: French >
- "La femme mange un poisson."
50 Comments
In English, yes. However, to say "The woman is eating fish." in French is: « La femme mange du poisson. », which translates to "The woman is eating some fish." In English, as you know, the "some" is not mandatory, so it can also be translated as "The woman is eating fish." The sentence given was « La femme mange un poisson. », which translates to "The woman is eating/eats a fish." As a result, the answer "The woman is eating fish." is not accepted.
957
Une situation humoristique: I was asleep, woke up & started my duo lessons and I thought I heard: "Elle mange un croissant." Even when I listened to the turtle! Je pense que j'ai besoin d'une tasse de café!
"the women is eat a fish" cannot be correct.
To translate the French present, this is the alternative:
- the woman is eating a fish = continuous present
- the woman eats a fish = simple present.
Tip: the system cannot recognize all non-required contractions (woman's eating), so please avoid them in writing.
The woman is not eating a specific fish; if she was then it would be "le poisson". "Un" indicates that she is eating a SINGLE general fish. "She is eating fish" means that she is eating multiple fish, which in French would translate to "Elle mange des poissons". "Un" works the same as the English "a".
Yes, she is eating a specific fish. Fish is not always served in pieces. A trout or sardine is "a fish" and she can eat one.
"She is eating fish" can mean she is having multiple fish, and translate to "des poissons", but because "fish" is vague in English, it can also mean that she is having "an unknown amount of a mass thing", and translate to the partitive "du poisson".
It's interesting how i can make connections between French and English words, and even identical Russian woeds. It help me to remember new words quickly. Like poisson can be associated with poison in English. Riz, the and other words seem to resemble Russian and English words. It's a bit fascinating to me tbh
This comes up often. Why is it that sometimes the app will accept "the woman eats fish" or "the woman IS eating fish," but other times will only accept "the woman IS eating fish? I find this happens a lot and i am forced to simply memorize whatever version of the answer the app wants from me at that particular moment. How am i supposed to tell the difference?