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- "The child has a book."
"The child has a book."
Translation:L'enfant a un livre.
23 Comments
You must contract le and enfant to l'enfant in French. Whenever you have the definite article le or la in front of a word starting with a vowel (or a vowel sound), it contracts to l'. Ex. l'orange, l'étudiant, l'homme, etc.
"L'enfant a un livre."
I'm using the keyboard feature because it makes me learn even better, so I don't have anything to look at. Now tell me, how am I supposed to know if a book's masculine or feminine. Like, it's an object. It's genderless. Don't they have like a neutral gender one? As in German. (das). Anyways, thank you for helping me.
Sorry, every noun is either feminine or masculine; there isn't a neutral gender in French. Rather than think of it as having feminine or masculine characteristics (it doesn't, it's a book) just think of it as two grammar categories. The only way to know is to learn the definite article with the noun.
masculine: un livre, un stylo, un vélo → a book, a pen, a bike
feminine: une pomme, une table, une fenêtre → an apple, a table, a window
L' and l' are just le or la + a word beginning in a vowel. The child, le + enfant is elided to form l'enfant. The orange, la + orange is elided to form l'orange. This contraction is required in French; you can't write or say "le enfant."
Since livre ends with an 'e' why is it not feminine? Une livre vs un livre?
There isn't a rule that words ending in "e" are feminine. Many are, but not all of them. Your best bet is to memorize the article (un/une) with every new word you learn. If you start now, it will be easier when you know 100s and then 1000s of words.
It will sound like: a euh(n).
Un is a nasal sound that is very unlike the "n" pronounced in English. If you want to hear words pronounced by native speakers, this site is a good resource: https://forvo.com/
le gamin = the kid (familier or casual)
l'enfant = the child (common term and appropriate in all situations)
The decision to only accept child for enfant was made over a year ago after the addition of the word gamin in the course. Child/enfant and kid/gamin have different registers of speech in both French and English, and it was decided that it was important to highlight those differences to users.
Use l' whenever le or la are in front of words beginning in vowels (a,e,i,o,u) or a muet h.
le + abricot = l'abricot
le + enfant = l'enfant
la + orange = l'orange
la + histoire = l'histoire
