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- "Her clothes are small."
"Her clothes are small."
Translation:Ses vêtements sont petits.
110 Comments
I remember learning to ride a bike. Kept falling off and often it hurt, even drew blood sometimes. 70 years later I can still ride a bike. Learning this language can be mentally hurtful sometimes and I don't even have the 70 years now to look back at the success, I guess that is why the deal is that the course doesn't draw blood?
2314
Duo users will constantly be introduced to new words this way. This is how immersion works. Mouse-over the word and Duo will give you a clue as to what it means. Even the Duo app allows you to do this. There is no shame in looking at the information which Duo makes available to you during the learning process. You can also keep a dictionary open in another tab and look it up. http://www.larousse.com/en/dictionaries/french-english/habit/38701
[Edit: For those confronted with the multiple choice exercise, it's true that it does not include mouse-overs. That's just the way it is. I know, it all seems so unfair! Even so, nothing prevents you from popping into your dictionary app to check on the meaning of a word you may not have seen before.]
1330
It's been so long since I've revisited this skill I forgot all about "habit" being clothes and fell for the same thing again. FML.
985
Yes I hate it when it speaks a word I have never heard and I have nothing to hover over, I just have to get it wrong.
1447
There were no hints for "habits" . Although I guessed it was an alternative for "vêtements" there was no way of knowing what gender the word was.
Necessarily, Lisaskier, introducing a student to a language, there will be times when a word, at least, will be new and unexplained nor hinted previously. There is a phrase; "We learn by our mistakes." That is what these discussion forums are here for. Lisaskier, gender is impossible, really, in all Romanic languages. Gender just has to be learnt and memorised. Look, in French , gender is "All over the shop." The sea is feminine; La Mere but the lake is masculine; Le lac. Topping the bill of confusion, and I have lost count of how many times I have given this as an example; the vagina in French is masculine, Le vagin. Duo is a limited, programmed free to use site to learn basic French. Babbel and Rosetta Stone will charge around £450 to present you with the same difficulties. Let us all just lively up ourselves? Bonne chance et heureux apprentissage. Votre ami, JJ.
530
I agree - only in "Tu habite ou?" meaning where do you live. - never in clothingmatters...
Do not be confused by thinking "Son" is used when talking about a male and "Sa" for a female, it can vary greatly. "Sa" is used when talking about something feminine. For example, "Sa voiture" means His/her car, but "Sa" is used because "voiture" is a feminine noun. "Ses," however is used in the plural form for either. For example, "Ses voitures" means His/her cars.
1362
How else can they teach you new words if they don't show them to you and ask you if you know how use them?
2314
It's not a mistake; it's a feature. Before you finish the French tree, you will learn to pick up on every cue possible to determine what the word is. You will learn to listen for things you never before realized were even there. Right now it may seem unfair to be taught in this way. If you have an audio exercise, you can listen carefully to the word and see if you can figure out what it is. Write it down while thinking French, not English. Look up the word you believe it is in the dictionary: Larousse, Collins, Wordreference, Reverso, or try Google (probably the least trustworthy for definitions). Can you get any clue from the context? Is it singular or plural, masculine or feminine. Sometimes you can answer some of these questions and sometimes you cannot. Finally, does it make sense? Do your best, put your answer and press ENTER. Then, right or wrong, the learning begins.
You cannot differentiate them with a single sentence. If I were to say: 'Elle est tres propre. Sa voiture est propre aussi,' you would be able to tell that I was talking about HER car, because the sentence before implies it. In short, there is no way to tell if they're talking about a male or female in the sentence unless the sentence before (or maybe after) implies it.
465
To answer your question, the H is indeed mute, so a liaison is made between "ses" and "habits" = "sayzzzabee"
1362
This one got me because I thought I knew what habits meant from before I started French. Turns out that while it can mean appearance or demeanor, the more common meaning is clothes. Lost a heart because I looked it up after I answered the question instead of before.
1362
Sa is singular, ses is plural. Vêtements is plural so its modifier must be as well. The modifier takes its form from the object it is attached to not the subject.
For the same reason, because vêtements is masculine, any of its modifiers take the masculine form. so that even if it was singular it would be son not sa. The gender and number of the subject is irrelevant, only the object of the modifier counts.
1362
According to dictionaries not much difference. Might be a difference in usage though.
Hi alan.philp- I wondered this when I had this question too! Echoing northernguy, it's Ses because its referring to the vetements (plural) even though translates to "her clothes". This is also why sont is used as opposed to est, and petites as opposed to petit. Hope this helps and good luck on your French journey!
1411
DL dinged me wrong for not chosing vetements even though it wasn't a choice on the tablet. And I did notice the inconsistent plurality!
465
Not sure what you mean by "on the tablet", but if you are referring to the vocabulary hints that appear when you hover over a word, I regret to inform you that they are not what you - and many others - imagine them to be. They are not hints directed at the sentence you are currently working on. All they are are two or three possible translations for the word; in no case will all of them be appropriate for the current exercise, and in some cases, none of them will be.
Personally, I think they are a menace to the mental health of the students here - they certainly seem to drive a lot of folks crazy. I ignore them and just use a good dictionary. I recommend http://www.wordreference.com/ Bonne chance!
1411
I use DL app on an android tablet and it behaves differently than on my desktop PC It sometimes 8-14 words to touch in order to translate a sentence. Vetements was not in the list but vetement was. It seems Madeline05 may have experienced the same thing. Writing any good app is hard, it's just also hard as a user to be dinged for not choosing an answer that wasn't there!
Depending on context, Clothes, Garments, Garb, Guise and more, even Habit. It really depends on the "Story" the particular context of the sentence and the "Plot", the scenario. Duo is trying to be gentle here and give us a clue that sometimes it is not Vetements, Robes, Costumes, Jupes, Pantalon, Veste/ for whatever we are wearing in England, there is another term?