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- "They can return to their pla…
"They can return to their places."
Translation:Ils peuvent retourner à leurs places.
24 Comments
Should "leurs places" actually be singular, in that each girl has her own place (just one place, not many). Does this sentence, the way it is written, imply that each girl has multiple places? I am remembering a high school French example like "Elles ont mis leur chapeau sur leur tête", singular chapeau and tête since each person has one hat and one head: if it were chapeaux and têtes, then the girls would have multiple heads to put their hats on! Someone, please illuminate this for me!
462
So....if they were all going back to one place, together, how would that be said in French?
Yes, again, a plural subject can have a singular or a plural object.
- elles retournent à leurs places (same as in English)
- elles retournent à leur place (each one to her own place/seat)
Remember: "ils mangent une banane" does "mean one each" and "ils mangent des bananes" means either one each or several each.
462
I hope I'm not being too dense here, but what if three people ate one banana among them? If "Ils mangent une banane" means they each had one banana, how do you say the 3 of them ate the single banana? Would you have to add something to the sentence to make that clear?
462
Really? "Elles retournent à leurs places" when all of them are returning to one place together? I am so confused.
1564
I can picture teachers saying to her students, "return to your seats" OR "return to your seat". To me, either works in English, however, I'm not sure that similar reasoning necessarily applies in a language other than English.
1564
Thanks for asking this question. I correctly used "leurs", but it didn't occur to me this time around that "ses" might have been an option.
830
what is the difference between "retourner" and "se retourner" that I saw earlier in this lesson?
462
"Revenir" = to come back here
"Retourner" = to go back to some other place.
This explains it well, I think: http://www.frenchasyoulikeit.com/retourner-revenir-rentrer-whats-the-difference/
In English "they" can represent 2 or more people, animals or things, irrespective of their respective genders.
In French, "elles" is used to translate "they" when there are 2 or more women or feminine animals or feminine things.
In all other cases, "ils" is used to translate "they" (2 or more people, animals or things, masculine or a mix of masculine and feminine ones)