- Forum >
- Topic: French >
- "How do you eat chicken?"
"How do you eat chicken?"
Translation:Comment manges-tu le poulet ?
64 Comments
To quote a post by Sitesurf in a thread on the reverse translation:
"How do you eat chicken" is about chicken in general. "how do you eat the chicken" is a chicken in particular.
In French, if you want to inquire about something in general, you will still need to add a "definite" article: le, la, les l' (in front of a vowel).
Taking this explanation into account, "Comment mangez-vous le poulet" would be an accepted answer.
You can read through the thread here:
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/110532/Comment-manges-tu-le-poulet
The articles "du, de la" are not general but partitive.
To remember what "partitive" is about, remember "part of"... something uncountable.
There is a difference between "eat some chicken" (partitive) and "eat chicken as a food category" (generalization).
The question here is inquiring about how you usually eat chicken as a food category. Do you eat it cold or warm, roasted or smoked?... that is the meaning of the question.
This is why you need "le poulet" as "chicken in general".
Ok, I am still lost. Tell you why. How do you eat chicken? asks the question in general, hence I need du poulet here. If the question was "How do you eat the chicken (on the plate in front of you), then I would need le poulet into the sentence.
"The question here is inquiring about how you usually eat chicken as a food category. Do you eat it cold or warm, roasted or smoked?... that is the meaning of the question. This is why you need "le poulet" as "chicken in general"."
That's right. If it is about eating chicken generally, then why isn't it du poulet?
If I am still incorrect (which I suppose), then tell me an example of when we should use du poulet, please. I'm going crazy.
I'm always getting confused on this issue and someone please correct me if I am wrong. In this sentence chicken can either be referred to as this specific chicken, the one in front of me, (How do you eat THE chicken) or eat chicken in general. (How do you eat chicken)
To refer to the chicken in general sense, a definite article (le, la, les) must be used. To refer to chicken specifically you may use either definite article ( le, la, les) for count nouns - the chicken OR partative article (du, de'la) for mass nouns - some chicken.
So either ''Comment manges-tu le poulet ?'' or "'Comment manges-tu du poulet?'' should be accepted.
.
If you can add "some" before an uncountable noun without changing the meaning of the whole sentence, you will need a partitive article in French.
In this case, "How do you eat some chicken?" looks really weird.
The question here is inquiring about how you usually eat chicken as a food category: Do you eat it cold or warm, roasted or smoked, with mustard, vegetables?... that is the meaning of the question.
This is why you need "le poulet" as "chicken in general".
"Il boit le café" is short for "il boit la tasse de café", so it is very close to "il boit du café" but "le café" is more precisely a specific serving.
"He drinks coffee" is "il boit du café", which also means "he is drinking coffee". In either case (habit or action in progress), he can only drink an "unknown amount of a mass thing".
299
Without being able to easily explain why, I can sense that 'du' wouldn't be quite right in this case, so you end up having to use 'le'. To get round the problem of whether 'le' means chicken in general or this particular chicken in front of you, I imagine in the latter case you would add -ci or -la (sorry, can't do an accent on this keyboard) after 'le poulet'.
299
On further reflection, I don't get any sense of the question referring to a specific chicken, otherwise the natural thing in English would have been to say 'this' or 'that' chicken, so it has to be 'le'.
299
I took 'you' to mean in a general sense so put 'mange-t-on', (ie 'how does one eat') but was marked wrong.
715
Is there a reason I can't interpret this sentence more generally as "how does one eat chicken" and translate it as "Comment mange-on le poulet?"
1783
Thanks, I am trying to figure out when one should use "est-ce que" versus the verb-article type of question. I am still not sure but this helps!
Our convention is that when the English sentence has "you", the French translation should have "tu" or "vous", for learners to practice conjugations.
The other way around, you will be able to translate "on" to "you" if the sentence is a piece of advice or general statement, or to "nous" in the other cases.
599
I wrote: "comment mange-t-on le poulet" thinking that the "you" conveyed a general idea, so the use of "on" was OK as in "how does one eat chicken?" Perhaps I got the form wrong?
290
Sitesurf - I was intrigued with your interpretation of this question. I didn't take it as being how I liked it cooked - roasted, grilled, etc. I was thinking about the process of eating chicken eg with a knife and fork or picking up a chicken leg with my fingers! In that case would I use du poulet?
290
sitesurf - many thanks for your response. I will get the use of de or le/la etc one day!!