"Y a-t-il des chaussures bleues ?"
Translation:Are there blue shoes?
37 Comments
"Are there blue shoes" and "are there any blue shoes" both seem to be natural English translations here.
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Actually, "Are there any blue shoes" would be the preferred English idiom. In omitting "any", you'd be much more likely to hear "Do you have blue shoes".
To my ear (with decades of experience with English), "Are there blue shoes" would require a very peculiar context in order to make sense.
Besides, krista189497 is right: my several years experience with French says that including "any" or omitting it is an equal option; both are correct, even though omitting "any" is weird.
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Thank you to Jeffrey... I am grateful that you understand and you are much advanced
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here we go again... previously Duo taught me des stands for... indefinite article I write for Y a-t-il des chaussures blues... are there any blue shoes...wrong.. instead it should be... are there blue shoes....I understand that the indefinite article can be dropped in English... but situation given in a shop the question would equally be understood and it is grammatically correct either way....or am I completely wrong?
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Done - Reported 29 Mar 2018
When I encountered the exercise at the end of the module, Duo accepted "are there some blue shoes?" which is not the better English. If this sentence is accepted, then so should "are there any blue shoes" be accepted.
Because of the construction of the sentence, I put "are there some blue shoes?", but if I were to ask this in English without the need to translate, I would say "are there any blue shoes". You just have to go with what Duo wants, or what you think he wants.
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I was very surprised to be marked wrong for using "any". des has always been available to be translated as "any" or "some" - or omitted. It depends on context to some extent, but often including or omitting make no difference in the English meaning and the correctness of the translation. I'm going to do the exercise over again and report it.
I agree, it should have "any" in there. "Are there blue shoes" is not natural English at all. You might hear Mary Berry or a member of the royal family say it but 99.9% of the population would tell you that it sounds wrong.
« Il y a » means “There are” or “There is”, but when you reverse the subject with the verb in French the ‘t’ is added between the two vowels in the question form. So it becomes « Y a-t-il ...? ». https://www.thoughtco.com/il-y-a-vocabulary-1371268
Keep in mind that though it means “there are”, the French expression actually uses the verb “to have” or « avoir » which is necessary to know when you use a different tense: https://www.thoughtco.com/il-y-sera-french-mistake-1369462
So what is that word represented by the letter « y » ? It is so versatile. It can replace an adverbial phrase or even a noun. Don’t forget to click on “Y as a noun” to get the rest of the information. https://www.thoughtco.com/y-french-pronoun-1368924
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"Any" is accepted in similar questions in this lesson. I guess this is just an oversight but it needs either correcting or a very good explanation!
Did you report it? “Some” usually becomes “any” in any question or negative.
I think that “any” is one of those words that translates oddly into French and they will use “aucun” for negatives, but that wouldn’t work in a question. So, I think that they have to do this word sentence by sentence. There are even situations in statements where we would put “any”, but they would put “tout” which means “all”.
I tapped the correct words and in the correct order - no option to put in hyphens or spaces but I keep getting the "You have an extra space" error. Hey - just saying :-)
One of the answers in the pull down menu is "does he have....." which I put and marked wrong???
When you look at each individual meaning of each word, you can get meanings for other sentences too. « Il a des chaussures bleues. » would mean “He has blue shoes.”, but « il y a » is an expression which means “There are” or “There is” and this is the question form of that expression. « Y a-t-il des chaussures bleues ? » which means “Are there blue shoes?” or “Are there any blue shoes?” although I am not sure if they are accepting that one yet. They were accepting “Are there some blue shoes?” So look for that “y”, because the question form for “Does he have blue shoes?” would have been « A-t-il des chaussures bleues ? »
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Some of us are learning Frech and English at the same time. "Are there any blue shoes?" Should be accepted as the most accurate translation here (lots of research done before posting this).
Take a screenshot of the answer you put if you did not miss a space and add it to a bug report through the help button below.
No, « il y a » specifically means “there is” or “there are” and the inverted question form adds a ‘t’ between the vowels. « Y a-t-il...? » for “Are there...?” or “Is there...?”
“Does he have blue shoes?” would have been « A-t-il des chaussures bleues? » at the very least, so look for that « Y » as it is the difference. I would more likely say « Est-qu’il a des chaussures bleues? »
Actually my parents from Montréal use « souliers bleus » instead of « chaussures bleues ». It is an older word that they don’t seem to use much in France anymore.
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Can anyone help me understand the hyphen in French questions? What is the name for this punctuation, and how can I understand when and where to use it? I find it very confusing.
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Thanks for those. Neither one really answers my question though, which is how to understand when to use it/what its function is in questions?
It is used when the verb is inverted and comes before the noun. When “il y a” is inverted the vowel of the verb “a” is right before the vowel in “il” so in French they add a “t” in between for the sake of euphony. They put it between “a” and “t” and again after the “t” before “il” all to keep the vowel sounds separate. There is no significance other than tying the inversion together, so that inversion becomes “Y a-t-il...”
