- Forum >
- Topic: French >
- "That girl resembles her moth…
"That girl resembles her mother."
Translation:Cette fille ressemble à sa mère.
9 Comments
Best explanation of verbs that take the preposition à is given by Sitesurf here (be sure to read all her comments in this thread):
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/948340
Also see point 10 here:
https://www.thoughtco.com/a-french-preposition-1368910
I think that "Cela fille" is incorrect because "cela" is a pronoun and not an adjective (please see: http://mapage.noos.fr/mp2/les_pronoms_et_adjectifs_d_monstratifs.htm).
I understand that the difference is kind of tricky for English speakers since the line between these two is a bit 'blurry' in my opinion (please see: http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/demonstrative-pronouns/ : "Do not confuse demonstrative adjectives with demonstrative pronouns. The words are identical, but demonstrative adjectives qualify nouns, whereas demonstrative pronouns stand alone").
I'll make a simple example:
"This car is blue, that is red."
Since in the first part of the sentence we use the construction:
THIS/THAT + noun; then this is a demonstrative ADJECTIVE;
So you would use the corresponding grammatical equivalent in French of course:
CE + masculin noun: Ce chien; CET + m. noun beginning with vowel: Cet arbre; CETTE + feminine noun: Cette fille; CES + plural nouns regardless of grammatical gender: Ces filles
ON THE OTHER HAND, the second part of the sentence "that is red" use the construction:
THIS/THAT + verb; then this is a demonstrative PRONOUN;
In this case, THIS/THAT do not qualify a noun but replace the noun itself (PRONOUN: from pro-1 ‘on behalf of’, + noun) and that's why they can followed/precede a verb.
So you would use the corresponding grammatical equivalent in French of course:
CE/C'/CECI/CELA + verb: "Ceci est à moi, cela est à toi." "C'est à moi."
verb + CECI/CELA: "Lisez ceci, ne lisez pas cela."
Of course there are exceptions with CE and C' and you could have a look here: https://www.francaisfacile.com/exercices/exercice-francais-2/exercice-francais-54501.php
In my opinion, it is tricky also because CE can be both demonstrative adjective and pronoun (please see: http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/ce/13947?q=ce#13787 and http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/ce/13946?q=ce#13786), so that's why people also get confused.
Sorry if my explanation is a bit convoluted but I am not very good at explanations, also I am not French mother tongue so, as a rule of thumb, I would always ask a native speaker with a good knowledge of grammar. Being Italian, I can say that there many similarities between French and Italian.
Sorry also for the uppercase, I am using it only to underline certain words, I am not shouting at anybody :D.