"It is only a thin leaf of lettuce."
Translation:C'est seulement une fine feuille de salade verte.
52 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
2010
It looks like many people are struggling with the ne...que construction. Let me try a new tactic. This is "the keychain" method, where you think about all similar items together.
Let's look at all the possible negatives:
ne... pas is your standard "not"
ne...rien "nothing"
ne... jamais "never"
ne... personne "no one/ nobody"
ne... plus "no longer/ not anymore"
ne... pas encore "not yet"
ne...que "only" (I tell my students to think of this as "nothing but" so that they connect it with the negatives.)
Ne...que works just like all the other negative phrases. Just slap it around the first verb in the sentence. The "que" is going to elision when it smacks into another vowel.
Hope this helps.
178
Yep you definitely can, as a native French speaker "c'est seulement" is a little too formal for a poor lettuce ^^'
529
To translate English "only" into French, you can use "seulement" in a positive sentence, or "ne pas que" in a negative sentence. Think of He is only = He is not but.
529
bbogenrieff:
je ne suis pas = i am not
je ne sui que = i am only
If it helps, think of the latter as meaning "i am not but"
1424
That is what I typed and it was marked wrong for whatever reason. I'm pretty sure that there were not typos.
529
Show us exactly what you typed -- the entire sentence that you typed. It is easy to make a mistake and not notice it.
2047
There are so many of us puzzling about why "une fine feuille" and not "une feuille fine." I hope we would have a response from one of the MODs soon.
178
I do not agree, as a native French speaker "fine" is preferable to "mince". Une feuille de salade est fine comme une feuille de papier, pas mince ;.)
Utiliser "mince" n'est pas foncièrement faux, mais celà sonne étrange.
Hmm. Could you please get a screenshot and post it here? It is hard to tell where the problem lies.
To post a screenshot here, you'll have to upload it to a hosting site like Imgur. Then right click on the picture and click "Copy image address" (or the equivalent in your browser). Then, here, type , replacing "Pasted image address" with what you just copied. Make sure not to leave any spaces.