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- "The children eat the soup."
"The children eat the soup."
Translation:Les enfants mangent la soupe.
59 Comments
When the English is "the children eat soup" or "the children eat some soup" (= a certain quantity of an uncountable mass) please use du for masculine nouns and de la for feminine nouns.
so, when in english there is the "the" before the soup (or anything else?) we don't use "de"? and when there's not the "the", we use the "de"?????
Why is it 'les enfants' rather than 'l'enfants'? I thought the rule in French was if the word begins with a vowel or 'h' you use l' rather than la, le or les?
l'enfant is singular, to avoid the conflict: le+enfant.
in plural, there is no point doing it since "les" ends with an -s that you liaise with "enfants" with a consonant sound: les enfants = lé-Z-enfan
The lesson shows "le soupe" throughout but then my answer waa marked incorrect when I was asked to write the sentence "The children eat the soup." It says the answer should be "potage." That's confusing since potage was never shown previously.
Nowhere in the course does "soupe" show with the article "le", since it is a feminine noun.
"la soupe, une soupe, cette soupe, de la soupe..." are the only occurrences you could see.
"le potage", masculine, is a clear/watery soup.
L' is an "elided" definite article, replacing "le" or "la" when the following word starts with a vowel of a non-aspirated H: l'ami (masc), l'homme (masc), l'habitude (fem).
Le is the masculine singular definite pronoun: the boy = le garçon
La is the feminine singular definite pronoun: the girl = la fille
Les is the masculine or feminine plural definite pronoun: the boys = les garçons (masc), the girls = les filles (fem)
when do you use mange, manger, manges etc, i ca never remember which one i am meant to use
Conjugation. When you see je"you put mange. And then it goes on like: Tu manges, il/elle/on mange, nous mangeons, vous mangez, ils/elles mangent. These are the present tense verbs. If you want the rest, go to the link at the bottom. It may be confusing, so I don't think you should look at it yet at level 4. I learned this in school a year ago and I still remember :)
Stupid. Either "mangent la soupe" or mangent de la soupe" is correct since the phrase in english lacks context whether it is the specific soup (not mentioned) or some soup.
I don't think I can agree on this:
"mangent la soupe" = eat the soup (a specific soup, the one we talked about before, for ex.)
"mangent de la soupe" = eat (some) soup (an undefined quantity of soup).
1362
dcront
If you are talking about the example given at the top of this page, the context is given. It is the soup. There is no doubt, in English, whether that means the soup or some soup.
Therefore there is no doubt in the French. It is la soupe.
I think that if you hover on "manges/mangent", you get the conjugation of the verb. Conjugations in French are more extensive than in English and verb endings change with almost every type of subject:
je mange, tu manges, il/elle/on mange, nous mangeons, vous mangez (polite singular or plural), ils/elles mangent.
- 1362
l'enfant = the child
les enfants = the children
l'homme = the man
les hommes = the men
l'hommes = incorrect.
firstly it is les hommes
because children is plural, it is only ' to stop the tension between the two vowels side by side, for example try saying le, homme, bearing in mind that the h is silent so it would be pronounced ommay, you will notice if you try to say it fast, it will end up sounding like l'ommay, hence l'homme
so back to your original question, because it is plural les would be used so there is no vowel tension, it is easy to say les enfants, it is done for the same reason that we say an orange and not just a orange (try saying it)
Hope this helps!
I put "l'enfants" and it said it was "les enfants" but in another question it told me that it was "l'enfants"
I JUST realized that you can click on the words to get some possible translation options... I mean, i took french like 8 years ago back in high school, but most of it isn't coming back to me as quickly as i'd like lol
I thought that is the subject (in this case "children") was plural, than the noun is plural (i.e. soup being soupes). This isn't the case? Could someone explain to me when it would be soupe and when it would be soupes?
une soupe = a soup
des soupes = soups
la soupe = soup / the soup
les soupes = soups / the soups
de la soupe = (some) soup
the children eat (some) soup = les enfants mangent de la soupe
the children eat the soup = les enfants mangent la soupe (= specific soup)
how would i know when to use mange/manges/mangent and other forms for eat?
The reason is that, unlike English, French has extensive conjugations:
je mange, tu manges (informal singular), il/elle/on mange, nous mangeons, vous mangez (formal singular and plural), ils/elles mangent
Waaaaaooooooo, I looove all pf your explanations . You do know what you are talking about. Are any of you french teachers?because of the way you explain things. Thank you very much, i am learning the language too, and the way you explain," i remove my hat".
"pougt" is not a French word.
However, if your translation was 'les enfants mangent le soupe", it was wrong because "soupe" is feminine and needs the article "la";
Then the computer checker offered the next best alternative with a masculine noun "le potage", which is a type of very liquid soup.
When the subject is 3rd person plural, like any plural noun (enfants = children) or the personal pronouns "ils" or "elles" (= they).
i got it wrong for adding a "de" before the "la". does anyone know when you're supposed to use a "de" before a "la" or not? Thanks :)
The children eat the soup = the soup is specific = les enfants mangent la soupe ("la" is a definite article).
The children eat (some) soup = what they are eating is an unknown quantity of a mass thing = les enfants mangent de la soupe ("de la" is a partitive article)
It told me i got it wrong because i used soupe instead of potage. Anyone else get that?
Everybody using the wrong gender for "soupe" ("un" instead of "une") gets the same suggestion for "un potage", which is the nearest masculine synonym of "une soupe".
I write soup and it is changing to potage. In all other assignments soup was soup now it is potage???
If you wrote "les enfants mangent LE soupe", you used the wrong article: "LA soupe" is feminine.
So the computer checker offered the next best answer with a masculine noun: 'les enfants mangent LE potage", which is correct.
"mangent la soupe" is wrong and should be "mangent la potage"? As well as "mangent de la soupe" is also wrong and corrects to "mangent la soupe" umm...
"un/le/du potage" is masculine.
- la soupe / le potage = the soup
- de la soupe / du potage = (some) soup
Une soupe, feminine, is rather thick, something you eat.
Un potage, masculine, is rather watery, something you drink.
I keep getting marked wrong for this question. I answered : Les enfants mangent de la soupe. I got marked wrong. I answered: Les enfants mangent la soupe. I got marked wrong. How can both be wrong?
This is the best course of action when a translation of yours is rejected and you don't understand why:
- You carefully read the correct translation suggested by the system.
- You click on "discuss the sentence" and you carefully read the thread until you find an explanation for your mistake.
- If your question has not been answered yet, you can post your question and give all details so that other users can help you, starting with the type of exercise you had to do.
As already explained on this thread, "the soup" is specific (not "some soup"), therefore, in French, you will need the matching definite article "la soupe".
"De la soupe" would be correct if the sentence were "the children eat soup".
When in the third person and you conjugate "manger" to mangent (or other "er" regular verbs), do you pronounce the "ent" at the end of the root? Or is it silent?
The 3rd person plural conjugation ending -ent is mute.
Yet, if the next word starts with a vowel sound, an optional liaison can be spoken, and it sounds [uh-T]
I'm confused. You corrected my sentence with the word potage instead of the word soupe. Why "potage"? I know what potage is, but it supposed to be soupe here. Merci.
