"It is January."
Translation:Nous sommes en janvier.
54 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
This is simply an idiomatic phrase that doesn't translate word-for-word into English. Just like we understand that "j'ai vingt-cinq ans" means "I'm 25 years old" and not the literal "I have 25 years," this is another turn of phrase which needs to be understood to have a non-literal translation.
The following constructions are used equivalently to "it is" in English for this specific case: - Nous sommes en [month] - Nous sommes [day] - On est [day]
Thanks for the clarification! I just came across this going back to practice an old lesson, and this is the first time I remember this coming up. One question though, I understand that "Nous sommes en" translates to "We are in" but what does "On est" translate to? It will help me remember if I understand the context.
"On est" is also "we are." The difference arises, I think, from the fact that "we" can mean a collection of individual people, a plural, or we as in a single unit or group made of individuals, a singular. In the case where "we" is singular, you would treat as such, hence "on est"
I'm no expert though...
811
Merci beaucoup pour ce. I read that a similar idiomatic phrase is used in Arabic and I've learnt that not every statement will translate literally to other languages.
881
How can it's January be s the same with we are in January.....are there people looking into these complains really?
790
In Croatian we use something similar, like "we are in January", so I think it's a phrasing issue.
818
My answer: c'est janvier, wasn't accepted. It seems no explanation is given to the querries raised by other learners I would request duo team to add show tip
1220
Why are you assuming that languages are the same? You must have already come across "j'ai trente ans" even though we don't say "I have 30 years" in English. However, the more obvious "c'est janvier" is also accepted here.