"They are in the backyard."

Translation: Elles sont dans le jardin.

[Robert.Edward]

How does 'le jardin' come to mean specifically the backyard? How does one distinguish the backyard from the garden out the front?

[AmineHadji1]

Actually, Le jardin means The garden, not the backyard. Yard = Cour and Backyard = Arrière-Cour. However, if what you refer to as backyard is a garden and not a yard (it contains trees and flowers), French people will call it jardin, since cour doesn't contain any vegetation.

[Ripcurlgirl]

Great response!! I've often wondered about that myself. :)

[Mike108277]

" l'arrière-cour" means backyard as opposed to just "garden."

[Luke300524]

what is the difference in pronunciation between "elles sont" and "elles ont"? how would i be able to tell which someone is saying in speech?

[jem_morgue]

Elles/ils ont has a sharp Z sound because of the liason. Elles/ils sont will have a softer sss sound.

[lupefe]

Perhaps backgarden would have been less confusing than backyard

[LendMeName]

In the definition of "the" here, it says le/la. Are they interchangeable?