20 Comments
I knew the literal translation of this sentence would be "it is like with my cousin's dog" but it seemed like such a bizarre sentence I assumed the French must be some idiom and typed something random in and lost a heart. I'm all for learning fun, even slightly silly, sentences but when the sentence reads in such a downright unnatural way in English, I'm sorry, but it is not useful.
It's not a fragment (there's a subject and a verb) but it requires great imagination to find a context. I agree, poor choice.
(the previous comment was edited, that's why mine doesn't make sense now)
I dunno, people say this kind of thing all the time, "it's like with my cousin's dog - he barks all night long". but yeah it's pretty colloquial when you're expecting something 'proper'.
719
I got it right but I came to the comments to find out why, since it seemed improbable. I'm surprised to see what seems to be a specific language artifact show as directly translatable in another language.
With that additional context it makes it more understandable, otherwise as a fragment it requires some imagination, of which I have very little right now!!!
I don't understand the English translation...how does that make any sense? This sentence seems like a subordinate clause aka fragment
It's random but still meaningful. If you prefer: “It is the same thing with...”, or “The same thing happens with...”.
This is a poorly constructed English fragment. It wouldn't make sense unless you understood the prior context in the conversation. As a native speaker, this statement confused me. If someone said this to me, I'd assume the context was highly informal/colloquial or slang/improper English. Definitely not something you'd hear in a professional setting.
- 719
It's definitely not something you are likely to hear in a professional setting but you hear it everywhere else in spoken English.
what's wrong with "That's how it is with my cousin's dog" which actually makes sense in English.
"That's how it is" contains two verbs, whereas this sentence only contains one, which makes your translation impossible. Which is too bad, really, because indeed, that sentence actually makes sense.
Now you've entered the waters of making a "good" translation. Yours is lots better, but these exercises want you to be as literal as possible. Still, it's a very poor choice for an exercise.
- 1995
So is the French sentence borrowing from English, or the English translation borrowing from French? The use of "like" is common in American English, but is this also common in French?
I don't speak French but that sounds better as the "with" in the English sentence doesn't actually mean "accompanied by".
