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- Meaning of "fille" in French
Meaning of "fille" in French
1602
In French, "fille" has two meanings:
1) "girl", when the sentence is about a female child.
- Ex: "Je suis une fille." translates to "I am a girl."
In such case, "daughter" is NOT accepted on Duolingo.
2) "daughter", when the sentence clearly implies a family connection between some parent(s) and the female child.
- Ex: "C'est notre fille." translates to "She is our daughter."
In such case, "girl" is also accepted on Duolingo. Note that "fille" in the sense of "daughter" is often preceded by a possessive adjective (ma/ta/sa/notre/votre/leur).
You have to use the context to determine whether you should translate "fille" to "girl" or "daughter".
42 Comments
2615
Your single handedly creating both forward and reverse courses justifies the error of pluralization :)
276
I'd say you wouldn't. ;-) To make a bit of sense, the sentence would have to be "I am the daughter of X." or "I am X's daughter." : "Je suis la fille de Pierre", for example.
Very interesting question!
Actually, you can either play with the adjectives (choice and placement) or you can change the first noun (to a colloquial synonym) - or you can do both.
Examples:
- c'est une fille méchante, mais une bonne fille
- c'est une vilaine fille, mais une fille aimante (caring)
- c'est une sale gamine/gosse, mais une bonne fille
Note that "une mauvaise fille" will almost automatically mean "a bad daughter".
Similarly "une vilaine fille, une fille méchante, une sale gamine, une salle gosse" are about a "girl" and not a "daughter".
"fils" which means "son" is the word that is related to "fillius" in Latin. In French the word for "daughter" from Latin came to mean "girl" as its primary meaning for every girl in the world is someone's daughter, but the word "garcon" for boy has a completely different etymology being related to the word "gars" both of which come to French from the language of the Francs. http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/gar%c3%a7on/36087?q=gar%c3%a7on#36043 http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/gars/36201?q=gars#36154 http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/gaillard/35811?q=gaillard#35774 http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/francique/35031?q=francique#35001