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- "Two plus two makes four."
"Two plus two makes four."
Translation:Deux plus deux font quatre.
33 Comments
I think "deux et deux font quatre" should be allowed. It's something French people would actually say in informal situations.
When is font used and when is fait used? In this situation, would fait be used formally and font used informally? Thanks :)
I think this is an implicit "la somme de deux plus deux fait quatre" that is meant here, to mirror the English singular conjugation.
However, in French, this really sounds bad.
We generally put it in plural, unless we say "la somme de deux et deux fait quatre"
what do we generally put in plural? like which part of the sentence is singular but it should be in plural?
The French usually respect the basic grammar rule that a plural subject gets a plural conjugation: 2 + 2 "font" 4
In an earlier lesson we learned it was "et" not plus. .. Apparently it is both ways. .. But which is best to use in conversation with the French?
If one day you wake up feeling hung over after a particularly spirited debate with a group of French five-year-olds about the vagaries of basic mathematics that lasted until 8 p.m. the night before, may you at least be able to say, "J'en ai appris des choses."
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Would the French ever say "Deux plus deux sont quatre."? I put "... est quatre", but I can now see that that is wrong.
Yes and in other problems on duo "treize ET cinq font dix-huit" is accepted as correct so your point is...?
The point is that if you use "et" and not "plus", when do you intend to learn (= memorize and use) "plus"?
I'm not like... procrastinating or trying to figure out ways to avoid learning things... I just want to make sure I learn it right, and it gets frustrating and confusing when an answer that was accepted in a previous answer isn't accepted in another. Consistency is helpful in instruction.
I feel your frustration with the owl.
On the other hand I can also see the logic in excluding possible answers to a question, for example where there's a direct word-for-word translation that's exactly equivalent across the two languages, and that's what the question is designed to point out. Sometimes it helps to try to figure out what the less obvious "lesson" of the question might be (even if it might not be an intentional one).
Of course it's not a perfect program, and ambiguity abounds, but that is to some extent a property of language itself, and it can be fortifying to wrestle with it.
Personally I think it's probably not a bad strategy to aim for the most direct translation, as that can help to build a framework of connections between the base and target languages, and it can also help to root out faux amis where the presumed direct translation is actually wrong.
It can also be helpful, as I imagine you've noticed, to compare a translation accepted by the program to a more idiomatic alternative also provided by it. And another strategy is to try different answers to repeat questions, to discover the range of accepted answers. Fortunately there are no permanent consequences of having one's answer rejected.
And if you find a problem and report it and it doesn't get fixed, consider Duo a quirky stubborn friend and agree to disagree.
Bon courage.
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I used " deux plus deux fait quatre" but was told that was wrong and it should be font. Why?
Actually, to have a verb in 3rd person singular, the subject needs to be singular as well.
So, we might consider that "2+2 fait" is the shortened version of "la somme de 2+2 fait".
But, grammatically speaking, with a plural subject, the verb should be "font".
"We" do accept it if it is written exactly like that (in the system, I can see lots of spelling mistakes).
I feel "deux et deux font quatre" should be an appropriate response. I also never encountered the word egalie but font and fait have come up
It's pronounced when "plus" is used for addition. It's also pronounced in certain other circumstances. This video might help:
