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- "Ma femme cuisine."
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Le cuisinier cuisine un poulet dans la cuisine sur la cuisinière. The cook cooks a chicken in the kitchen on the cooker. And I haven't even used the verb Cuire (to cook a product ,I think) eg "il/elle/on cuit" I am struggling on this one.
Is cuisine a verb too? I know its a noun...but is it a verb? Duolingo says, "My wife cooks" is "Ma femme cuisine"
Good question.
http://www.frenchtoday.com/blog/how-to-say-to-cook-in-french-cuir-cuisiner-faire-la-cuisine
So “cuisiner” can always replace “faire la cuisine”, but “faire la cuisine” cannot always replace “cuisiner”.
quote: "“Faire la cuisine” is never followed by the thing that you prepare. The focus is on the action itself."
It appears that the French have a word for husband and a separate word for man, a word for son and a separate word for boy, but the word for woman must also be translated as wife in certain contexts and the word for girl must suffice for the word daughter... It isn't Duolingo that is sexist...
No, not at all!!! In principle, with a person subject, "cuire" is a transitive verb (i.e. used with a complement that is the object of the action).
"Ma femme cuit", as it is, with no complement, would mean that she is the object being cooked, baked. It's very unlikely to hear that sentence, unless in a figurative way: you're on the beach, scorching sun, you are in the shade but your wife isn't, so you could say "Ma femme cuit / est en train de cuire", she's roasting like a chicken in an oven!
"Ma femme cuite": "cuite" is here used as an adjective/past participle, and so that would be the result. The night of your hot day at the beach, your burnt wife can't even bare to have a light shirt on her shoulder, "Ma femme cuite ne peut même pas porter une chemise légère". "Cuite" is not the main verb here (it just describes your wife).
"Ma femme cuit le poulet": she is BAKING the chicken. There must be an object after "cuire", otherwise it means what I've written just before (provided the subject is a person).
Of course, then you could translate as "my wife is cooking the chicken", but "cuire" is more specific and it literally means "to bake", "to roast", "to braise" or "to heat up", according to the object you're cooking.
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I appreciate El Gusso's explanation of cuire vs cuisiner. In my childhood dialect of French, we used only cuire for the act of cooking anything and cuisine was only the actual kitchen or to explain a type of cooking once it was prepared. This is not to say the distinction was not understood by my parents, I just didn't get it! Thank you.
It seems that in a possessive form, Femme is Wife and in a general form Femme is woman. Ma Femme will almost always be My Wife but La Femme can be The woman or in the possessive context The Wife. In a Blues song, I do not know how the French would distinctly say "I woke up diss moanin'.... An' Lord my Woman done gone"" Methinks the French dont never have dem empty bed Blues?
so what if its your girlfriend, or fiancee, whoss cooking still a woman, still "yours," but not your wife?
Still considered derogatory to use "Woman". We'd say just what she is; My Girlfriend or My Fiancee or My Partner.
ma copine, mon amie, ma fiancee. if you say ma femme,, it means my wife.
we have so many words in french to translate this ! ma nana, ma gonzesse, ma copine, ma poule, ( the Canadians will say " ma blonde" and so many more... so the blues ( i am a jazz fan since the age of 15 and i;m now 78, can easily be translated by any of the above. AND WE DO HAVE THE EMPTY BED BLUES FEELING TOO !!! many of my women done gone!!!
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For those wondering, "mari" = husband, but there is no word "marie" for wife. "Marie" (proper name) is a woman's name (only). "Femme" may be either woman or wife; when used with any possessive adjective (ma, ta, sa, votre), it will be understood as "wife".
It's "ma" because: - singular (only one wife) means it must be "ma" or "mon" - femme is feminine means it must be "ma"
"mes" would be for plural (my children = "mes enfants").
sa is second-person singular, ses is second-person plural.
The table here should help:
http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/adjectives_possessive.htm
none of this matters, i just want to learn french.also, women cook and so do men, if ypu think this is wrong just think that it could also say man.
I'm sure you've got a clue, haven't you?!? Especially with an example such as "FEMME", it couldn't be any clearer! ;-)
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"mon" is English "my" for masculine words. Talking about your husband, you should say "Mon mari".
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"ma" is English "my" for feminine words. Talking about your wife, you should say "Ma femme".
This would, of course, be too easy as such! :-) And maybe that's why you ask the question...
Tricky thing is, the rule of "colliding vowel sounds" applies here too, like you should say "l'avion" (masc., "the airplane") or "l'école" (fem., "the school"), and not "le avion" or "la école", because those words start with a- and é-.
With "mon" and "ma" + nouns starting with a vowel [sound], you don't use the apostrophe ( so not : m' ). To show you, let's take synonyms for "mari" (husband) et "femme" (wife) : "époux" and "épouse" (= spouse). To translate "my spouse", you should write and say:
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"mon époux" (for your husband) : no change here, as "mon" ends with -n, and you can make the liaison between the two words. So this is pronounced [mon népou].
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"mon épouse" (for your wife): you use the masculine form of "my" in French, to avoid the collision of "mA Épouse". You then create the liaison here as well, pronouncing [mon népouz].
It's a bit confusing because you use the masculine possesive determiner (mon) with a feminine noun (épouse). This rule applies to ALL nouns (persons, animals, objects, concepts,...).
Thus, if someone says "mon ami" (male friend) or "mon amie" (female friend), you can't tell the difference orally, unless the person insists "unnaturally" on the final -e of "amie" to make it clear they talk about a girl.
Hi Bhavya. Femme is woman in general but preceded by a possessive it means wife
When did the word wife get in the sectence. Ma means my femme means woman cuisine means cooking/kichen. So confused!!!!!
Amber, this has been addressed so many times here in this very thread. When Femme is preceded by a possessive; Ma, Ta Sa...... Femme then means Wife. This is just how French works itself.
It is not wrong, Mariabap. Report it. Check n6zs's post above. He is most trustworthy.
I thought the infinitive would be cuire, which is the verb, correct? So why wouldn't it be Ma femme cuit?
Hello Mary. French is quite specific. There is a context for cuire but it is also for sting, bake, kiln and curry, (as in flavour, groom a horse with a curry brush. it is also a noun and is a small shrub or tree native to India and Sri Lanka. You may see the problems with using Cuire?) The infinitive for To Cook is cuisiner.
yes, ,it is. the verb is CUISINER. In french you have three possibilities to translate TO COOK : CUIRE - CUISINER - FAIRE LA CUISINE. My wife is cooking can be translated either with/by MA FEMME CUISINE or MA FEMME FAIT LA CUISINE, Ma femme cuit is not a good translation.
Something else : :the english progressive form (- ING ending) is translated in french by ETRE EN TRAIN DE ... So this sentence should really be translated as MA FEMME EST EN TRAIN DE CUISINER, or MA FEMME EST EN TRAIN DE FAIRE LA CUISINE. If you want to use the verb CUIRE, then it should be followed by an OBJECT., for instance : MA FEMMES EST EN TRAIN DE CUIRE DE LA VIANDE. because if you say MA FEMME EST EN TRAIN DE CUIRE, it would mean that she is in the process of being cooked !
well, a cannibal could say it !
