26 Comments
No. Il parle implies that a male human is speaking. If it were an object, like an article or a book, it would be ça instead.
What is the difference between "ce que" and "ce dont"? When do you use one or the other?
ce que means "What," whereas ce dont is more like "Of which." -Je ne sais pas ce qu'elle a fait. (I don't know what she did) -Ce sont les chiens ce dont j'ai peur. (Those are the dogs of which I fear)
Someone back me up or correct me, please!
What you said is about right, but it's supposed to be 'Ce sont les chiens dont j'ai peur' (no second 'ce', because that would be the equivalent of: "Those are the dogs that of which I am afraid'.)
That translates to "those are the dogs of which I am afraid" or "those are the dogs which I fear".
'Dont' translates to 'of which/ of what', and 'ce dont' translates to 'That of which/ That of what'.
A sectence with 'ce dont' : C'est ce dont j'ai peur' (That is what I am afraid of)
'Ce que' literally means 'That what', which is shortened in English to 'what'
I hope that helped :)
Here's a better response. http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/indefiniterelativepronouns.htm
Thanks for this. Now I know how to make "that's what she said" jokes in French with "c'est ce qu'elle dissait"! :P
I think you have to have a thing which he is speaking of. So, "this is that of which he speaks" is accepted, and in general construction it would need to be "this is <the thing> of which he speaks"
Correct. "Of what he speaks" is not a complete noun phrase. However, the suggested phrase, "This is what he is talking about", is a much less awkward version.
Can anybody help me with this? I wrote 'it's this of which he talks' and one of the correct solutions is 'it's that of which he talks' Cannot 'ce' be translated both as 'this' and 'that' in this case?
I had the same answer as you 'it is this of which he speaks' which was marked as wrong even though DL suggest 'it is that of which he speaks' as a correct response. I thought 'ce' = 'this' and 'that' 24/nov14
1719
The idea is similar but saying "the one" makes it more specific. "C'est ce dont il parle" is literally (word-by-word), "It is this/that of which he speaks." Since that is a bit awkward in English, we would say, "This/That is what he is talking about". Your sentence would be, "C'est celui dont il parle."
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I'm confused. Where did "about" come from? I put - and I'm probably mistaken - "That is what he is saying."
I might be wrong (someone correct me!) but the "dont" is replacing the "de" which is where the "about" comes from. More like "That is what he is speaking of." If you can find a lesson that describes "ce dont" well somewhere, let me know! :)
I think it's that your sense is right but your vocab is wrong. 'To say' = 'dire'. 'To talk' is 'parler' and for 'to talk' you end up needing the 'about'.
Couldn't the answer also be "C'est ceux dont il parle" since the audio is so shady?
I thought that myself for a bit but as Pigslew said, you would then be mixing the singular (c'est) with plural (ceux). "It is the ones of which he is speaking" doesn't make sense as opposed to using 'Ce sont' for "Those are the ones of which he is speaking."
