61 Comments
I love cats, I love every kind of cat, I just wanna hug all of them, but I can't - I can't hug every cat.
I love cats too, but not all of them. Probably they have never seen "My Cat from Hell" show.
Tous is all. Tous les chats means all of the cats. Tout is a singular, yes. Tout le chat means all of the cat('s body or something catch my drift?)
I understood this as "we all love cats" so just saying this sentence is kinda confusing.
ok, again... why is "we like every cat" wrong? probably not the prettiest sentence, but imho it's still correct.
Wouldn't that be Nous aimons chaque chat? In this case, I suppose it makes little difference, but with a different verb it there can be a distinction. (E.g. I have seen each cat [one at a time] or I have seen all the cats [at once].)
I put "we like every cat" as well but im guessing because it says les chats the cat needs to be plural
I thought aimer was only translated as "love" when it referred to people . . . No?
Tous goes with a masculine plural noun and toutes goes with feminine plural. http://www.wordreference.com/fren/tout
Can anyone comment about using the pronoun 'on' instead of 'nous'? Such as 'On aime tous les chats"? In spoken French I believe 'nous' is rarely used and none of these lessons (at least that I've seen) have even mentioned 'on' . Merci.
"nous" is proper French and "on" is its usual substitute in speech (and increasingly in writing).
The only reason for this is conjugations: 3rd person singular (on) is simpler and quicker than 1st person plural.
However, "on" is defective: it does not exist as an object pronoun, direct or indirect, nor as a stressed pronoun:
There is no "on" form for:
- il nous regarde (direct object = us)
- il nous donne de l'eau (indirect object = to us)
- il est venu avec nous (stressed pronoun = us, after a preposition)
- lui et nous avons un chat (stressed pronoun = we, as multiple subject)
- Q: "qui est là ?" - A: "nous !" (stressed pronoun in short answers)
Yet, "on" has a reflexive pronoun (shared with "il" or "elle") = se
- on se douche à 8 heures
Also note that a mix of "on" and "nous" related pronouns/adjectives is frequent in colloquial speech:
- nous, on est venus en voiture (emphatic
- on a nos sandwiches et nos bouteilles
Sitesurf - could we add a unit to Duo on "on"? This is such a great explanation and could be expanded a little to be the tips and notes for the unit, with a couple of lessons that give us a chance to practice some of these variations that you have noted here. Maybe it could be the third bonus skill?
At the moment, we cannot add any new bonus skills. However, if you keep what I wrote above in a safe place, you will be able to practice it with other sentences in the course.
I wrote "We like every cat", and it did not accept, because, according to DUO 'cat' should be plural. This is not correct, since 'every' refers to 'every single' cat. Therefore 'we like every cat' should be accepted. Especially since DUO itself suggests 'every' as a translation for 'tous'. Please correct.
While true, I've seen native speakers claim that the two are interchangeable, which argues for allowing the translations to also be interchangeable. The only reason I could see for DL being strict about it would be to avoid misleading beginners regarding plurals, but that risks making a distinction without much of a difference that's also misleading in its own way.
Do "all cats" and "all the cats" mean any different in English in this context? I'm not a native speaker. :'(
"Tous les chats" means only the former?
No, « tous les chat » can be either "all the cats" or "all cats" because of the way the definite article does double duty as a generalization article in French. I'm afraid only context in the wild is going to help differentiate the two differences in meaning.
Thank you very much for the clarification, neverfox! I'm still a beginner and keep struggling with the French article, and every other thing, at the moment! :)
There is a distinction in English between all cats and all the cats.
"All cats" means the totality of cats that exist, existed or will exist. "All cats are grey in the dark."
"All the cats" means all of the cats under discussion at the moment. "We are caring for our mother's five cats while she takes a well-earned break. All (of) the cats are well behaved, so looking after them should not be a problem."
However: "All the cats in the world would not make her feel happy. She prefers dogs." If you qualify cats by adding a prepositional phrase (in the world) which here functions as an adjective, you then need to include the in all the cats.
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I feel that there is a difference, and it's similar to the difference between "cats" and "the cats": definiteness.
"all cats" means all cats that exist.
"all the cats" implies that there is a certain group of cats that you are talking about (perhaps "the cats that live in my house") and then quantifies over just that group, meaning that "all the cats" would refer to all the cats that are in this implied group, rather than all the cats in the universe.
I'm not certain about the French but I think it can mean either of those.
ah, I got it. Thank you for your help! :)
"Tous les chats" sounded more like "all the cats," and that got me confused. Hope someone would clarify that part!
"Nous aimons touS (the S is pronounced) les chats" or "nous touS aimons les chats"
If "nous" consists of women only: nous aimons toutes les chats / nous toutes aimons les chats
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Is there a rule that this relates to? I would like to know more about this.
Since "tous" can mean "all" or "everybody/ everyone", you have to distinguish the meaning with their respective pronunciation.
- we all love cats/all of us love cats = touS
- we love all cats/every cat = tou(s)
If you read Sitesurf's posts on this above you will see that could be a correct translation of the written words but when it is spoken the tous would have to be pronounced touS in order to give your suggested meaning.
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Could someone please guide me about the usage of "tout" vs "tous"?
Is it that "tout" used with uncountable nouns and "tous" with countable nouns? After all both can refer to multiple things or people?
"tout" is an adjective in this sentence, and it agrees with the following noun, in gender and number:
- tout le temps (masc sing) = all the time
- toute la nuit (fem sing) = the whole night
- tous les chats (masc plur) = all (the) cats
- toutes les femmes (fem plur) = all (the) women
- 14
Because that would be "chaque chat".
"Every cat" (chaque chat) looks at them individually; "all cats" (tous les chats) treats them as a whole.
Nous aimons tous les chats :"tous" may be "everybody/ all of us", isn't it ?
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So how to understand which of the following is the real meaning of the sentence?
"Nous aimons toutes les chattes"
=> We (women) love all (female) cats.
or
=> We (women) all love (female) cats.
Is it the context that reflexes the concept behind that?
And my next question is:
How to say "We all love all cats". I know that's somehow weird since it can have the same meaning as "we love all cats", but I'd like to put some emphasis on it. So, if possible any answers would be appreciated.
Thanks
'Nous aimons toutes les chattes", where both the subject and the object are feminine, is indeed ambiguous, but there is another solution:
"Nous toutes, (nous) aimons les chattes" = we all love cats
"We all love all cats" = nous tous/toutes aimons tous les chats/toutes les chattes.
I have rewrote this sentence about twelve times using correct punctuation and it still tells me I am wrong.
This is sickening. I have tried several times to translate this, and have copied your answer. No matter what I do, it is not accepted (even after I copy and paste). If I cannot advance, your program is in error. Fix it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If this continues, I will leave, and NEVER come back.
Wtf..."aimons" they say means "love" for people/pets but it was marked wrong?!
Out of the whole "cat" category, 99.99% of them are not your pets. You can say "J'aime/J'adore mon chat" to mean "I love my cat", but if you "love" a whole category, you will use "J'adore tous les chats", and the French sentence here expresses a moderate feeling which should translate to "like".
The hint suggests that it should be "we all like the cats". Yet the answer is "we like all cats". Why is that? What am I missing?
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The pronunciation of tous would be different for those two meanings, but you can't tell the difference in writing.
It could either be nous aimons tous + les chats = we all like + the cats, or nous aimons + tous les chats = we like + all the cats.
In the first case, tous sounds more or less as if spelled "tooce" in English; in the second case, as if spelled "too" in English.
