"The tortoise is eating an apple."
Translation:La tortue mange une pomme.
19 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
The difference between the tortoise and the turtle is that the turtle lives in the ocean whereas the tortoise lives on land.
I'm so confused, why is "est" used sometimes and not used other times? Is there a way to tell if it should be used or not???
The present continuous tense is used in English to describe an action that is happening as the person describes it. This is specific to that tense.
In French, the equivalent of the present continuous tense (called "le gérondif") is not often used because it's doesn't sound very beautiful. Here's the structure of the "gérondif" : verb "être" + "en train de" (which means "in the process of") + verb in the infinitive form. For instance, if you want to conjugate the verb of the sentence "The tortoise is eating an apple." in the "gérondif", it will be: "La tortue est en train de manger une pomme." If the sentence was conjugated in the present simple tense ("le présent simple" in French), it would have been way shorter ("La tortue mange une pomme.").
Thus, if it's necessary to translate the idea that the action is happening as the person talks, then it's better to use the "gérondif". In other cases, you should use the "présent simple" to make your sentence shorter, so easier for the other person to understand it.
When there's no context telling if it's necessary to translate the idea that the action is happening as the person talks (such as in the sentence of Duolingo's exercises), it's OK to translate the sentence with either the "gérondif" or the "présent simple". Note that it's more formal to use the "gérondif".
I hope that my explanation is clear enough, and if it's not the case, feel free to ask me to rephrase it :)
Please read the comments first and you will see the answer has already been posted by another helpful user.
For some reason, my answe was "La tortue marine mange une pomme". Can this be explained?
I think that "La tortue marine mange une pomme." is wrong for two reasons.
The first one is that a tortoise lives on land, and the adjective "marine" qualifies something that is related to the sea. In other words, "une tortue marine" is a turtle, a reptile that lives in the sea, which is not the case of the tortoise. Then, a better translation of that sentence would be: "La tortue mange une pomme."
The second reason is that the phrase "la tortue marine" doesn't sound natural. As a French native speaker, I've never heard someone sayning that. If you want to translate "a turtle", you should say instead "une tortue de mer".
I hope that my explanation is clear enough, and if it's not the case, feel free to ask me to rephrase it :)
Duolingo usually does not care about capitalization but it marked it wrong although there was nothing wrong with my answer. literally word for word what the said the answer was.
I've seen "tortue" translated by Duo as both "turtle" and "tortoise". Can anyone tell me how to differentiate between these two creatures in French?
The word "turtle" only applies to the reptile that lives in the ocean, whereas the word "tortoise" names the reptile that lives on land. In French, "turtle" and "tortoise" are both translated by the word "tortue" (although it's better to say "tortue de mer" for "turtle").
I hope that my explanation is clear enough, and if it's not the case, feel free to ask me to rephrase it :)
Le mot "turtle" désigne une tortue de mer, tandis que le mot "tortoise" fait référence à une tortue terrestre. En français, on utilisera le mot "tortue" pour traduire les deux (parfois en précisant "tortue de mer" quand le mot en anglais est "turtle").
J'espère que mon explication est assez claire, sinon, il ne faut pas hésiter à me demander de la reformuler :)
That would look sooooooooo cute if I actually saw a turtle eating an apple.
More than half of my mistakes is confusing the gender of the animal, it's kind of frustrating.
When duolingo says le or la the english translation the. When duolingo says un or une the english translation would be a
