42 Comments
Why is "There is some sun" wrong? Seems to me the translations are getting pretty picky.
Now added. Thank you. It's a new sentence. We can straighten out the kinks if users report them.
I would rather say "There is sunshine." but that was also not accepted. Wait, now they are accepting "There is sun." but it would be rarely said if ever. The best would be "It is sunny."
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"There is some sun" would sound improper in English. And "du" doesn't always mean some. For eg: "J'ai du pain." means "I have bread.", but on Duolingo it's "I have some bread", which is debatable, but "du" is usually used before things that are countable. Overall "du" coming before a word doesn't always make it "some insert word here". That's as far as I know about "du". Hope this helped.
"There is sun." sounds a bit strange too. I could say either one in very specific circumstances but it would not be common.
"There is sun." I might say to someone who thought there was no sun today.
A sun peeking between clouds might prompt me to look out the window and say "There is some sun."
Still, I would most often say "It is sunny." or "It is not very sunny."
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Yeah, I forgot to mention "There is sun." would also sound improper. And you've made a nice point there, with the sun peeking between the clouds situation. But usually when that happens most English speakers will say it's a bit sunny outside because I've never heard someone say that "There is some sun.", I mean a proper English speaker would say "I can see a bit of sunlight peeking through those clouds" or "I can see some rays of sunshine through those clouds", so "There is some sun" is still debatable.
As far as I know, "Il y a du soleil" and "Il fait soleil" generally mean "It's sunny". I understand since "Il y a" means, there is, people can see it as meaning as "There is sunshine". Generally, "Il y a du soleil" and "Il fait soleil" mean the same thing. What do you think?
The common expression is « Il y a du soleil. » and not «il fait soleil. » , although you could say « Il fait beau. » for “The weather is beautiful.” and we would assume that it is sunny with that also.
soleil = sun
lumiere du soleil = sunlight
ensoleillement = sunshine
this sentence does not say there is sunshine, it simply says there is sun (or, less literally, "it's sunny").
So, how would you use "ensoleillement" ?
I think it is more like "a period of sunshine" or "sunlight" in use, there is even a word "insolation" which is a technical term that can be "ensoleillement."
https://dictionary.reverso.net/french-english/ensoleillement
I would use "There is sunshine." rather than "There is sun." Would you say "Il y a de l'ensoleillement." ? Sometimes words don't exactly translate one to one.
Of course, it is better to say "It's sunny."
Try to report it as another alternative, though you know most people will just say “It’s sunny.”
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I had this question too. According to Sitesurf "il y a" states what you can sense so it would be used in a sentence containing a noun (fog, rain, snow, etc.). "Il fait" is used when it is followed by an adjective (froid, chaud, humide etc.
There is really no accounting for why some expressions are the way they are: « il neige » is “It is snowing” and « il pleut » is « it is raining », but “it is foggy” could be « Il y a du brouillard. »
Il y a = there is (you can always use it in that sense) Il fait = it is (literally means "he makes" and is most often used in reference to the weather. It's a fixed phrase.)
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"the sun is shining" marked as wrong. In English imo correct, but not correct Duolinguish. Native speaker please comment!
It is a correct English statement, but is it a correct translation of the French? No, “The sun is shining.” would be « Le soleil brille. »
That is actually accepted as correct. “It is sunny.” is also accepted as correct, since it is the most common idiomatic English expression to match the most common French expression.
I always read "il y a" as "there is", then i read "du soleil" as " some sun".
Why is it in French that seemingly quite explicit sentences, like the French used in this example, can mean multiple things?
In my mind, saying "there is some sun" and "it's sunny" are two distinct sentences, and i might want to say specifically one or the other.
I also used Google Translate to find out the French for specifically "it's sunny" and it returns "Il fait beau". Yet another way of potentially saying the same thing.
Google translate is not always the best translation tool. « Il fait beau. » is translated as “The weather is beautiful.”
Now “It’s sunny.” is « Il y a du soleil » ; just like “I’m hungry.” is « J’ai faim. ». These are expressions that cannot be translated exactly.
Here in California where the weather is “always beautiful”, It is not always sunny. It is most of the time though. Sometimes we don’t think this much sun is actually beautiful. To me a beautiful day is not too hot nor too cold, just perfect. I would say “It is beautiful.” I don’t even bother to say “out” as some sentences here want you to.
Why does "It's sunny outside" work when there is no "outside"/"extérieur" in the sentence? Or is it just assumed to be sunny outside? How would you say the sun is getting inside?
Funny isn’t it. That is totally redundant. If it is sunny, we sure don’t mean inside. I understand when they started adding “out” for “outside” in “It is beautiful out.” and “It is bad out.”, because those might refer to other things than the weather. This is just over the top!
If you opened the curtains to let some sun in, we would normally say “Let the sunshine in.” or we could talk about “Rays of sunshine filtering through the blinds”
They are just different expressions for things that in English we may use the same expression for, but in French they are not exchangeable.
« Il y a du soleil. » Notice that a noun follows this expression.
We just don’t really say “There is sun.” So, we would most likely say “It is sunny.”
« Il fait beau. » Notice that an adjective follows this other expression. We are likely to say “It is beautiful.” However, since that can refer to so many things other than weather, Duolingo likes you to put “The weather is beautiful.” so that Duolingo knows that you know that the French expression can only be about the weather. If it were about something else, then in French it would be “C’est beau.”
If you click on "Soleil" it will just give you the answer, is it supposed to do that?
In this particular case, yes, because the French sentence is an expression that can't easily be put together by individual word translations.
