How can "she's an apple" be correct?
To translate "Elle a une pomme" I wrote "she is an apple" which makes no sense in English but was deemed incorrect by duolingo who said it had to be "she's an apple". Still not valid English, since there is no gender designation to objects in English. And even is there were, why is "she's" correct but "she is" wrong. I teach ESL and they are the same
9 Comments
Elle a une pomme - She has an apple.
I think in British English it's acceptable to contract "she has" to "she's" in this sentence. In American English I might say "She's got an apple" instead.
I speak British English (I am from the UK), but we would only contract "she has" to "she's" when we use the present perfect tense. So, we would say something like "she's gone out with her friends" or "she's done her homework for history". We would never contract it to mean "she has" when talking about possession. In that case, we would say it as a whole (she has).
Thank you so much for the correction/clarification. I think the Owl must be on drugs then :)
There is probably something in the code that accepts "She's" for "She has". If you come across that sentence again, leee3, just use the button to report the problem.
Elle est une pomme would be 'she is an apple'.
Elle a means 'she has', and the 'a' comes from 'avoir' (to have).
Hope I've helped
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It means she has an apple. I don't think that in the UK we would shorten has to 's.
My mistake then, and thanks for the correction.
Usually when I see "weird English" in Duolingo, I just assume it's British. I would assume you do the same (only blaming us Americans instead :D )
The word "a" in this case does not mean "is", it means "has." As for why use "She's", it's more of a sort of uncommon/archaic way of saying "She has", just the same as if someone was to say "I've" or "You've", which translate to "I have" and "You have."
