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- "Ça consiste en quoi ?"
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295
You could roughly translate that sentence by "What is it about ?" I think. In French, it would be asked in this situation for instance : - "Wanna play baseball ? - "ça consiste en quoi ?" - "Well a player thows the ball, and the opponent must hit it with a bat..." etc. Hope it can help
You are wrong, sir. It is absolutely grammatical to end an English sentence with a preposition - "The spurious rule about not ending sentences with prepositions is a remnant of Latin grammar, in which a preposition was the one word that a writer could not end a sentence with."
http://grammar.about.com/od/grammarfaq/f/terminalprepositionmyth.htm
Despite everyone complaining that it sounds "pretentious," I appreciate correct English because it means you know how to communicate more clearly.
When you start reading something complex or technical, ending sentences in prepositions makes the reader assume that there is more to the sentence when there isn't more to it. Everyday conversation is generally simple enough that you can figure out what is being said whether or not the correct grammar is used, but when the concept is important and/or complex (or worse: emotionally-driven), there is nothing like clear, correct, concise and unambiguous grammar. Anyone who doesn't believe me should take a statistics course full of word problems.
Kudos to hrtrahan and all others who tried to be correct!
English contains two types of consisting: in and of. They are similar but not entirely identical; consisting of is usually literal, consisting in often more subjective. E.g., this senstence consists of words but the distinction consists in a strong grasp of English. Does the French consister have the same flexibility?
consist in is consister à, whereas the consister de here can be paraphrased être composé de, i.e. the same as English consist of (see here http://www.wordreference.com/fren/consister).
No. You need a verb in there. En doesn't translate to "consists of" or "made of". Table en bois = table in/of wood = wooden table. Not "table made of wood", even though that is the general meaning.
http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais-anglais/en/28919
130
How do you translate to French the difference between "consist of" and "consist in"? One meaning, "to be made up of", the latter "to be an essential feature of". Consist of is usually the physical make up, consist in is usually less tangible. E.g., I consist of cells, yoga consists in breathing and stretching.
I don't do a lot of yoga.