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- "He always wears blue shirts."
"He always wears blue shirts."
Translation:Il porte toujours des chemises bleues.
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Il porte toujours des chemises bleues is correct because the adverb toujours goes after the conjugated verb porte. See http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/adverbs.htm
Here is something that might help you :
http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/articles.htm
Use the three links to learn more about each type of article.
Right - but both my previous French education and the link that you provided said that the definite article can be used when talking about the general idea of of something. The article you gave me mentioned that "I like ice cream" can be translated as "J'aime la glace" - even though you are not talking about a specific unit of ice cream.
Yes you're right, but when we talk about concepts (when you say that you like "ice cream" you're not talking about any existing ice cream, only about what ice cream is as an idea), we use the definite article.
So to summarize :
one or several specific objects (or ideas) we know about : definite article
one or several objects (or ideas) we don't know yet (but which exist) : indefinite article
one or several objects (or ideas) as part of a whole : indefinite article
When we talk about the essence of something (so not about an existing form of this something) : definite article.
Here are a examples for each case :
- "J'aime les fleurs que tu m'as apportées." (The flowers are known in the sentence, because they are introduced by "que tu m'as apportées". It can also work from a sentence to another, in a discussion for example.)
- "J'apporte des fleurs à mon voisin." (It's just some random flowers, we don't know anything about these.) If I would use "les", it would mean that in a previous sentence someone talked about these flowers.
- "Il a prit des fleurs de ce bouquet." (Here we talk about flowers as part of a whole, the bouquet)
- "J'aime les fleurs." (Here I'm not talking about any real flowers, but only the idea of "flowers", I like what "flowers" are, so any flower that I might see in my life are concerned by this statement.) It works the same for objects not in the physical world, like feelings and ideas. If you say "j'aime la joie" you're talking about joy as a concept, not as an existing joy of someone.
Finally, be careful because you might be tricked by articles which seem indefinite while in fact they are not, when we have to use "de".
To make it simple :
"de + le" = "du" or "de l' "
"de + les" = "des"
"de + la" = "de la" or "de l' "
"des" and "du" in these cases are not indefinite articles but definite articles (because of "le" and "les" they replace).
I hope it was clear enough. I'm not a French teacher so I try to explain the best I can but you might still have things you don't understand (or there may be nuances that I didn't cover in this post). I encourage you to do your own research on the matter if necessary.
No no, the sentence in French only means that the shirts he wears are always blue. We use the plural if the shirts are different kinds, and even though they are all blue, they are still different.
If we were to use : "Il porte toujours une chemise bleue." it would either mean that the man has only a blue shirt to wear, and he wears the same all the time, or either that he always wear blues shirts which look the same, or almost the same.
It's not theory here, it's just how I interpret these two different sentences as a native speaker.
Here is a good summary of adverb word order in French. http://french.about.com/library/weekly/aa060300.htm
First, you use the infinitive form of the verb ("porter"), when you should be using a conjugated form (in this exercise it's présent simple), for "il" it's "porte".
Second, the correct expression is "tout le temps", not "tout les temps".
Third, "tout le temps" should be used after "porte".
Fourth, you'll have to use an article for "chemises", which is plural, so "des" is appropriate. We can use an indefinite article because we're not talking about specific blue shirts or blue shirts in general, we're talking about some unspecified blue shirts.
Finally, "chemises" being a feminine plural noun, you'll need to change the adjective "bleu" to feminine plural, which gives you "bleues".
The correct sentence would be "Il porte tout le temps des chemises bleues."
Any existing thing can be a concept, ice cream or anything else.
When you say "I like ice cream." to someone, you're not talking about an existing ice cream which can freeze you brain. You're saying that you like ice cream in general. Without further detail, any ice cream that exists in the world is concerned by your statement, as well as any ice cream that existed before and any ice cream that will ever exist in the future.
That's why we can say that you're talking about the concept called "ice cream" and not an object or even many objects called "ice cream".
That's the position of "toujours" that confused the engine, it tries to suggest the correct answer which it analyzed as the closest to what you typed.
Your answer is incorrect because of the position of "toujours" (also, it should be "bleues" instead of "bleus"). The correct version is "Il porte toujours des chemises bleues".
If you want to use "avoir" instead of "porter", then indeed you can use "il a toujours des chemises bleues.", although in my opinion it's not that correct if your goal is to translate "he always wears blue shirts", because you can have shirts and never wear them for example, but in common French we can use (or rather abuse) "avoir" to mean "porter", so I suppose that's why it's accepted.
"port" is a real French word, but it's not a verb, it's a noun, it can mean "harbor" if you mean the location where boats arrive and depart from, it can also mean "port" if you mean a slot in a computer where you can insert various cables/devices (e.g. "un port usb" = "a usb port").
There are other less common uses which you can find here:
https://www.wordreference.com/fren/port
But no, "port" is not a conjugated form of the verb "porter". You can find the conjugation of "porter" here: http://la-conjugaison.nouvelobs.com/du/verbe/porter.php