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- Topic: French >
- "The men have children."
"The men have children."
Translation:Les hommes ont des enfants.
26 Comments
To understand this clearly, 'ont' means 'have' and 'a' means 'has'?
For example:
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The boy has an apple: Le garcon a une pomme.
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The boy has apples: Le garcon a des pommes.
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The boy and the girl have apples: Le garcon et la fille ont des pommes.
Also, 'est' means 'is' and 'sont' means 'are'?
For example:
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The apples are red = Les pommes sont rouges.
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The apple is red = La pomme est rouge.
Is that correct?
I do not understand how to use ont and sont. How can I tell which is correct?
If i understand correctly, "ont" means (they)'have' and "sont" mean 'are'
27
l'homme is a singular form, the man. For the men, one uses hommes, but this requires les instead of l', les hommes.
- 746
Because les hommes is 'the men' and des hommes is 'some of the men, but not all of the men in the world'.
The nouns cannot stand alone. French grammar always demands some kind of determiner. "Des" is just indicating there is some amount of children. Hope that helps
- 27
It's plural, so has to be les hommes. l' is used with the singular, so as to prevent two vowel sounds from being right next to each other; le homme doesn't work. It's somewhat similar to using "an" instead of "a" in front of apple or organ or enemy. You have to say "an untold story" because untold starts with a vowel sound. With "useful", on the other hand, the "u" has a "y' sound before the "oo", pronounced as if it were yuseful, so one says "a useful tool". not "an useful tool".
Thank you, that helpef me alot. Thought i waz right with l'hommes but tje explains the singular and plural.
- 27
Well, not really. L' is short for le (when in front of a noun beginning with a vowel sound), and le is a singular form, so L' goes with the singular homme. But hommes is plural, so it needs the plural les, not the singular L'.
Why is the enfant not plural enfants is it alwYs singular like sheep in english
