187 Comments
Because you are inserting the verb "are". The men are calm would be: Les hommes sont calmes.
1-Sont means are Les hommes SONT calmes 2- in french the adjective follows the nown directly *sentence order : In English --> adj + n In french --> n + adj
Sont is the last form from être.... Je suis, tu es, il est,NOUS sommes,vous êtes, ILS sont
Veerjee ! SONT is used with third person like ils sont....elles sont. But SOMMES is used with 2nd person....like Nous Sommes.....Les hommes sommes riches.
I think you might have gotten a little confused there - 1st person is I (singular) and we (plural). Sommes is therefore 1st person plural.
3rd person singular is he or she or it. And 3rd person plural is they. Sont is therefore 3rd person plural.
Sont and sommes are both a variation of the verb "etre" meaning "to be." The verb changes forms depending on the article, or "WHO" ...he/she is calm, we are calm. Look up the conjugation of the verb "etre" and it will help SOOO much because it is a special verb.
Yeah, me too .. It says ''the peaceful men'' « this sentece should be the right answer :p
It's because the sentence isn't mentioning that they are calm, it's just saying the calm men. Les hommes means the men, and when it says calmes, it's giving a description to the men, which is calm. In French this happens a lot, they put the noun (men) before the description, whereas with English we describe before stating the noun. Example "the calm men" would be literally "the men calm" in French (Les hommes calmes)
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because it is not "the men are calm", but rather "the calm men". Another subtle yet important distinction we must sort, whilst we "keep calme and carry on".
The problem here is that the slow pronunciation differs from the fast. One seems plural (fast) the other singular (slow)
I think that's because when les said as a word by itself and not in a sentence the s is silent it is the same with sommes
That's true. It got me too. For some reason the default for me on this is the slow pronunciation. Couldn't figure out how I got it wrong.
How do I tell the difference between "the calm men" and "the calm man" if they're pronounced the same?
In "les hommes calmes" you would hear the "ay" sound in "Les", but this would be absent in the contracted "l'homme"
No.They're not pronounced the same. Les hommes and L'homme is not the same: lè-zôm, and lôm.
l'homme calme is the singular,, and les hommes calmes is the plural. it is pronounced different
When i pressed the turtle button it pronounced "Le homme calm" is that right??!
That's right because at the slow/turtle speed, the words are pronounced one word at a time.
le = the
homme = man
but, "the man" = "l'homme"
However, it looks like Duolingo has eliminated the turtle speed for this sentence to avoid any confusion.
It gave me the translation of The peaceful men. I can see why it wasn't The men are calm now after readijng the threwad but I see no indication on why calme would turn into peaceful. Very fustrated please explain
L'homme = The man
Les hommes = The men
L'homme calme = The calm man
Les hommes calmes = The calm men
Do you mean always follows the noun? The adjective usually follows the noun, but not always. See here - http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/adjectives_4.htm
Hi there :) does anyone know why does "calmes" sound the same as "calme"?? Is it supposed to be pronounced exactly the same, but just spelled differently?? Or is it just because of the robotic voice? :P
They sound the same because the "s" is silent. They are supposed to be pronounced exactly the same.
s is silent in french, please read the tips and notes in "basics 1" lesson, it helps alot
@dwlee: Yes the adj comes after pron...@kansungyeo: We cant use l'homme because this one is plural it should be Les hommes calmes and none of the S' should be pronounced so it should sound like (LaY - Um - cowlm) even though sometimes you will hear them pronounce the s after Les to sound like (Lez). The french will understand you either way!!
@ThanKwee: AH HAH.....I seeeeeeeeee... Thank you @ThanKwee, this link is helpful http://french.about.com/od/ :) :)
Hi gabriellleallou You can respond directly to someone's comment by pressing the "reply" button beneath the comment. Have a nice day. ☺
There is "paisible" in French. http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais-anglais/paisible/56959
You can translate "peaceful" by: calme, pacifique, serein, paisible, tranquille, etc...
http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/adjectives.htm
French adjectives change to agree in gender and number with the nouns that they modify, which means there can be up to four forms of each adjective:
"Calme", however, only has two forms because it's the same for both masculine and feminine, but it's "calme" if speaking about one man or woman, and "calmes" if speaking about men or women.
if calme = calm, then why would I translate to "peaceful" in english? In the english language calm and peaceful dont always necessarily mean the same thing.
Shouldn't "Les hommes" sort of slur together with the pronunciation instead of sounding so choppy? I realize that taking it slow would help with learning the words but in practice, the beginner wouldn't know that the 's' sort of carries over. That's my concern, though not very pressing I suppose. Just a thought.
If you press the speaker, it is said at a more natural pace and you hear the "s" in les hommes calmes. If you click the turtle, each word is pronounced independently so you don't hear the s in les (because when you say the word by itself the s is silent).
But yes, in regular speech it would sound like lez-ahm
i wrote "the men are calm" and its wrong the computer said its "the peaceful men" how so ?
It's showing - the quiet men when the question clearly asks - les hommes calmes Why is it so??
I put men calm because it is writen like that but i see some words you have to write backwards
I wrote the men are calm - how do you detect if it should be direct translation or not?
Maybe it's because I didn't understand well your question. Can you rephrase it please?
How do you tell when to use direct translation and when to reword the sentence to be 100% grammatically correct?
In french, the adjective goes after the noun. like in "une pomme rouge" and "le chat noir".
Because you are describing a plural subject.
L'homme calme.
Les hommes calmes.
Do the pronounciations of the words change depending on the other words around them? It seems les is pronounced le but sometimes it is pronounced les, and le in le chat is pronounced loo but pronounced le in nous sommes le chat. There also seems to be other words that arent pronounced the same all the time. help?
It should be "the calm men" . If you type "the men are calm" then it will display incorrect.
Hi! So I always add the "s" to the verb if the subject is plural? Like "calme" becomes "calmes"? And has the "s" pronounced?
Bit hard to catch the last "s" on the word "homme", so I typed "homme" :(...
here it is obvious that its plural, because in singular it will be l'homme, but here it is les hommes... so the difference is clear
here it is obvious that its plural, because in singular it will be l'homme, but here it is les hommes... so the difference is clear
In direct English, it would be "The men calm" but it reverses to "The calm men".
Direct English would be "The men calm", but it' reversed to "The calm men". Why is that?
For some reason, on the questions where you have to say back the phrase, it never will accept my voice and says it's wrong. When my family members, WHO DON"T SPEAK FRENCH, do it, they are always recognized.
I always get these wrong. I forget i have to switch calm and men around. But i finally got it.
I like french but the way she speaks that is really fast so I canʻt say it
I heard "Le homme calme" but apparently it's plural even though it doesn't sound it. Stupid language has no right to abuse the letter S like this.
как на звук отличать множественное число? ведь окончание "s" не произносится(
how to distinguish the plural on the sound? after all, the ending "s" is not pronounced(
how to distinguish the plural on the sound? after all, the ending "s" is not pronounced(
Well, that is incorrect. "The calm men" is the correct answer. In French the adjective follows the noun.
It doesn't give me a chance to speak into the microphone before it tells me I'm pronouncing it incorrectly! Very frustrating!
How do you know of a word is masculine or feminine? I just guessed that the answer was calmes but i learnt in school that though a word may literally mean something manly that doesnt mean its a masculine word. Feminine words have np s at the end right?
French can get extremely confusing with the switch with verbs ,because I only know English.
For some reason it is not recognizing my voice when I repeat the sentence. Not even one word is recognized!
when I try to say the sentence it automatically says " ops I'm sorry I didn't know what you said ". Then yelling I almost got in trouble by my French teacher.
Its one of the most greatest application that i ever know! Good job #duoling!
I hate your game because i said the les hommes calmes and your computer chose for me calme
What is the difference between "calme" and "calmes"? Is one mascular and the other feminine or something?
audio pronunciation does not seem to indicate a plural - les and homes not heard with liaison but two separate words
I am so confused about the different forms of the verbs, like , when should I add ''s'' after a verb?? Can anyone help me work this out? Thank you so much:)
When I said it into the microphone it didnt work so I got a french woman ( mum speaks perfect french) to say it and it still doesn't work. Please fix this issue Duolingo
like omg they said it was wrong but im half french so they dont know i now plz fix
They need to tell you that, when i get to passe composee and imparfait, ill be super lost
Mine was a listening exercise and I wrote "les hommes calmes" and it said WRONG IT SHOULD BE les hommes calmes.
On the speaker it sounded like le homme calme so that what i put in but now on this speaker it says les hommes calmes
