"The girls are drinking milk."

Translation: Les filles boivent du lait.

[ambinova]

Why is the 'du' needed? I thought it was only used for when there i a some in there? Please explain

[Nick74643]

if more than one person is drinking milk why is "du lait" not "des lait". ie. why is milk singular.

[MaggiePye]

Because "milk" is an uncountable noun. They aren't drinking "milks," they're drinking "milk."

[Karo904487]

"Les filles sont en train de boire du lait" Why is it bad?

[Jack-frost-2.0]

Why is ("The girls are drinking milk.)=(Les filles sont en train de boire du lait.) no accepté?

Sorry for my english. I speak more french. :)

https://www.duolingo.com/comment/26513731

Lien in french. Sorry.

[georgeoftruth]

Accepté maintenant. Merci de l'avoir signalé.

[azp15]

Why (are) is omit I this sentence

[Ripcurlgirl]

English has two present tenses: simple ("I drink") and continuous ("I am drinking"), but French has no specialised continuous verb tenses. This means that "I drink", "I am drinking", and "I do drink" can translate to je bois (not "je suis bois") and vice versa.

Je bois
Tu bois
Il/Elle boit
Nous buvons
Vous buvez
Ils/ Elles boivent

[Learning214]

Where is the "are" part of the sentence.

[MaggiePye]

Boivent can be translated into English, depending on specific context, as "drink," "are drinking," and "do drink."

[DragGeo]

Can are drinking = sont en train de boire?

[mike000schwartz]

I tried using "Les jeune filles boivent du lait." ...
but the duoLingo answer that would have been accepted, was only a sentence without the word "jeune".

Also, the audio pronunciation of some of these words, is (slightly) different from that of my French teacher (more than a half century ago) ... and she had lived in France for years.

Just a comment.

"NRN" ... (however, feel free to reply if you want to.)

[mike000schwartz]

Hmm ... I did see a [question and answer] "exchange", at https://www.duolingo.com/comment/1142975/The-girls-drink-milk ... which suggested that perhaps if I DID want to use the plural of the two-word phrase "jeune fille", that ... the (correct) plural for that two-word phrase, would have an "s" [a suffix of "s"] at the end of EACH word; ... that is "jeunes filles"; ... NOT *"jeune filles".

However, That [correction] might be completely unrelated to my mistake ... (which WAS: using the two-word phrase "jeune fille" at all ... [plural or not] ... instead of the single word "fille" [plural or not].)

(right?)

[rakeshs24]

What does "du" mean

[angestars2]

Do you always put "du lait" instead of "le lait"?

[georgeoftruth]

No.

• Du lait = unknown amount of milk
• Le lait = the milk.

[Lisa808016]

why don't you use sommes for are?