"Friday and Saturday nights"
Translation:Vendredi et samedi soir
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It works the same in Italian ("venerdì e sabato sera"): I'm not sure, but I think that it's because here "soir" refers to the moment of the day (something like "friday and saturday, at night").
But that's not the sentence in English! If there's a translatable difference between "night" and "nights" and they want us to translate "night", then they should write "Friday and Saturday night"
only if they are referring to "some" friday and saturday nights and not all of them.
Nuit is in contrast to jour. Soir is in contrast to matinée or après-midi. You wouldn't likely say Friday day, but you would say Friday morning or Friday afternoon. Therefore, soir.
Because English. In English, night is often used in that contrasting sense with morning and afternoon, i.e. as a synonym for evening. But since the languages aren't ciphers for one another, the fact that you see "night" in the English doesn't direct you to use "nuit" in the French. You have to consider the connotation and select the appropriate French word.
That's really weird. So how would I say Friday night in French, when I don't mean Friday evening? Like "What nights did I stay up? Friday and Saturday nights."
Well, you'd probably use "nuits." I said it does't direct you, not that it precludes you.
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Is this a problem of context? Does the phrase mean the two nights of Friday and Saturday or all Friday and Saturday nights?
Since we are referring to all Fridays and Saturdays, why is it not 'Le vendredi et le samedi soir'?
the difference between soir and soiree is explained here: http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/a/an-annee-jour-journee-matin-matinee-soir-soiree.htm
According to Duolingo, "nuit" is night and "soir" is evening, but I think "soir" can also mean night.
i said de vendredi and de samedi, it failed me because of the second de, don't quite understand why.
In English when we talk about one Friday and one Saturday night we say "Friday and saturday night" but when we talk about ALL the friday and saturday nights we write "friday and saturday nights". So in the latter case the french translation is "vendredis et samedis soirs"???
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Maybe there should be some contextual info and then we could be asked to translate a certain bit, not the whole text. just thinking...
Why are there no articles here? Can someone tell me when to use articles and when not to?
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Same! I would've been happy but I think soirs is more correct. I think nuits only denotes the time between midnight and noon, but I suppose it's unclear in English....
[QUESTION]
Does the word "soir" here refers to "samedi" only?
Thanks for your explanation.
No. As in English, it's understood to refer to both when phrased and punctuated this way.
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The Phrase in English, night is wrotten with plural "Nights"
I Think It does not match with the french phrase soir as singular.
In Portuguese we say Friday night and saturday night " sexta à noite e sábado à noite" but It seems like an incomplete Phrase It means Friday all day and saturday only at night?? Could be " the pub is open only fridays and saturdays night"
Could DUO be or use phrase with less noise please! It is hard to beginners like me to understand a foreign language. French is a rich language in words and style but sounds are so close almost the same, singular and plural so there are a mess in our brain.
By the way I guess "soir" is a plenty night, nuit is a beginning of night, before dinner, It was that I understood. Please someone answer me if I made some mistake!
in this specific case "soir" must be plural "soirs".
I would hope that it accepts "night" as well, since the context would make a difference. But the fact that "nights" is shown as at least one correct answer isn't necessarily a contradiction, because English is much more flexible than French in this matter. French, in most cases, uses a singular for soir or matin even though you're talking about more than one day, e.g. les lundis soir, the logic being that because you've qualified things by days of the week, then there's only one evening one any one of those days. In a sense, it acts almost like an invariable adverb. If you haven't qualified it by days of the week, e.g. tous les soirs, then the plural kicks in as you would expect. So, can you say "vendredi et samedi soirs"? I've seen it around, but I'm not so sure it's actually good French I'm seeing. "Soirs" occurs much more rarely than "soir" and almost always in contexts like "les soirs." https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=soir%2C+soirs
My $0.02 and I would appreciate a native speaker chiming in on this.