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- Topic: French >
- "Il pose le pain."
57 Comments
In the absence of context, I should say there is not much difference. If you want a nuance, "poser" is rather about putting DOWN while "mettre" is neutral in terms of gesture.
Except that in natural English, nobody says "he is placing the bread". When we translate, it needs to be natural and correct French and it needs to be natural and correct English as well.
Unless you are mentioning where he is placing the bread, then it is perfectly natural. "He is placing the bread on the counter." is okay, though "He is putting the bread on the counter." is probably more common. Without a location. I can see why they add "down". "He is putting the bread down."
I agree that while "to place" may not be very common in American English, it seems to be the most correct if the intent is to communicate "put down on something in a deliberate action"
Then “he places the bread“ is right? I cannot remember seeing many uses of “place“.
I feel that "place" (placer) is more careful and less thoughtless than "put down" (poser)
This confused me. I remembered the one about posing the roses, so I pictured a man carefully placing baguettes in a basket in a market and I responded WRONGLY: "He arranges the bread" - How is this context so much different than when we used pose to explain arranging flowers?
IMO, it's just over-thinking the situation. The verb "poser" simply means "to put down". There are other possibilities, including "to pose" (as for a photograph), but let's keep it simple. Context helps.
Can "Poser" be also be used as "to put down, to chide" as in "L'homme pose le mauvais garçon"? Or is it specific to instances where someone is setting something down?
No, we would not use verb "poser" to mean "chide".
l'homme gronde le mauvais garçon
501
"To put down" doesn't mean "to chide". It means "to denigrate", or "to insult", or possibly, "to verbally defeat".
- 190
This is an eloquent point I'd hoped to find. 'Setting down' seems a more appropriate English translation. The concept of "putting down bread," or "putting bread down" comes off as pejorative, e.g. 'to speak ill of the bread' rather than about the bread's location at a given point in time. This is but one case of a phrase with an implicit meaning in French that doesn't translate to English well when a literal meaning is applied
I was checking google translate to see if there was a difference between 'poser' and 'mettre' and I accidentally typed them together as one phrase. Apparently, "mettre poser" means "to ask." Can someone who knows more than I explain how you get that from what seems like "to put to put"?
This illustrates how Google/Translate can be deceiving...
poser une question = to pose/ask a question
poser pour la photo = to pose for the picture
poser / mettre quelque chose sur la table = put / put down / lay down / place something on the table.
Google translate is not exact, trust me I am in a french home right now and they use google translate sometimes and it is NOT correct
I think the closest English verb for "poser" is "position". However "He positions the bread." sounds unnatural.
Also notice the origin of the English verb (and noun) "pose": Middle English: from Old French poser (verb), from late Latin pausare ‘to pause’, which replaced Latin ponere ‘to place’. The noun dates from the early 19th cent.
Why not "He puts the bread", like "Il donne le pain"?, i mean, in spanish "Il pose=El pone=He puts".
- 501
You can't just "put" something. You have to put it on something, or put it down, up, across, over.... "He puts the bread" is not an English sentence.
When you pose a question (poser une question), it translates to ask, but not in any other context. Stupid google.
"Poser" is just to place something, it does not say where. And French verbs do not use postpositions as English ones do.
- je pose mon verre sur la table (on the table)
- je pose mon livre sur l'étagère du haut (on the upper shelf)
- je pose ma valise par terre (on the ground)
Ah, okay, it is placing instead of putting. In English one can put something up or down. One can not place something up and placing something down is an awkward phrase in English sometimes.
you put up food (like jam or pickles) when you cook and seal and sterilize things in jars (home canning) or otherwise preserve it; I don't think of bread as something that can be "put up."
In any case, there's nothing in the french sentence to suggest either upward motion, upward location or storage. It refers to setting something on an available surface instead of holding it, and because gravity is gravity, that's generally covered by setting or putting down whatever you're carrying.
Don't know why that was downvoted--a unit of bread is indeed a loaf. Seems like it should be fine.
He is dropping the bread = il lâche le pain, il laisse tomber le pain, il fait tomber le pain.
Such a long discussion for a short sentence. I just wanted to check if anyone could explain what the English translation means.
I can't think of any situation where such weird collection of words could fit.
'What does he do?'
'He puts down bread.'
Meaning what? When the bread tires to escape, he shoots it? Or he talks sternly to the bread? Or perhaps records in writing every loaf made?
- 501
He has just come in from the bakery. He puts down the bread, takes off his coat and hangs it up. Then he takes the bread to the kitchen.
He sets down the bread. e.g., he puts it on the table, so he can put the butter away first, and hang his keys on the key hook. Or he sets it on the bread board, so he can cut it. Yes, "he puts the bread down" or "he sets down the bread" would be slightly more idiomatic everywhere I've lived.
"Put down the X" is, to my ear, mostly used when issuing orders that have to be instantly non-ambiguous as to the direction of the movement: "put down the gun." I would not be surprised if that one very specific usage is "infecting" the ear of people who are not mother-tongue, as it's so inescapable in US movies / TV?
Though, actually, ngram suggests that "put down the bread" is the older form (and in fact, the only one, in the works google books scrubs, until about 1900).
Could be that "put the bread down" has risen somewhat in popularity as the term, "a put down" increased in use (from around 1968).
