"I play the violin with my daughter."
Translation:Je joue du violon avec ma fille.
3 Comments
A little advice please: In the sentence "I play THE violin with my daughter" the definate artical is used. I thought the definate article in French here would be LE. What grammatical oddity means DU has/ should be used? DU translates as OF. Surely if you wanted me to put DU, the English phrase should not have had the definate article in and thus have been "I play violin with my daughter" - this I would have translated with le mot "Du"......
To play an musical instrument, in French the expression is jouer d'un instrument.
To say "I play the ...." a specify musical instrument, the structure depends upon the gender of the instrument.
A violin is masculine therefore Je joue du violon - du = de + le
A guitar is feminine therefore Je joue de la guitare - de la does not contract.
I hope that helps. ☺
"Jouer un rôle" = play a role/part
"Jouer de" + musical instrument: je joue du violon, de la harpe, des cymbales
"Jouer à" + sports and games: je joue au football, au Scrabble, à la balle, aux fléchettes (darts)
