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- Topic: French >
- "She has a newspaper."
"She has a newspaper."
Translation:Elle a un journal.
44 Comments
You have to learn the gender. There is no logic to which noun is masculine or feminine. Spanish is the same.
I dunno about French, but I am kinda fluent in Spanish (grew up with it) and I know I didn't have to memorize what words were Masculine and Feminine. I've always had a little bit of a knack to guessing weather a noun is Masculine or Feminine and I'm usually right with some exeptions (For years I would say "La agua" instead of "El agua").
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That's the difference with growing up with a language (or just generally learning it by being surrounded by it), though, then you usually just pick these things up.
But when you learn a language by studying it, you have to memorize some things and explicitly understand others.
Yeah I wouldn't know but I think you would be right. I have always lived in the US but since I was a baby my dad spoke to me in Spanish and my mom English (Although now my English is MUCH better than my Spanish) and my dad started learning it around when he was 10. He said that when you learn it early you remember if the word is Masculine or Feminine very clearly, but when you learn it after knowing one language very well you don't really remember that fact clearly when you learn a new word. That might be it.
That is because you grew up with it. In Swedish we don't have any logic for when you say [a] or [an] but every swede knows when to use them. The perks of learning it from childhood.
Look for the noun in the dictionary. It will be stated whether the is masculine or feminine. FYI in arabic language, we can know that the word is feminine just by looking at the last letter of the word.
No specific reason, all nouns have a masculine or feminine gender. It generally comes from their etymology, because French is basically a Latin language, with ancient Greek and latin roots.
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It's fascinating how different the genders are in comparison to German. So far, only man, woman and boy had the same article. Alright, and maybe orange.
But all of the others were different so far (word - French vs. German article):
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girl - feminine vs. neutral
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apple - feminine vs. masculine
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child - m/f vs. n
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cat - m vs. f
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robe - f vs. n
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book - m vs. n
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letter - f vs. m
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newspaper - m vs. f
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menu - m vs. n
What is the difference between a and veut? Don't they mean the same thing? Or are they used in different circumstances?
It says that it should be "un", which is masculine. But it says she. Does un & une not apply to the first noun?
Nooooooooo I cept doing this many times and now I finily understand why this keeps happening. We I read it I am thinking of other words and I do: elle a un newspaper. insted of doing: elle a un journal.
French verbs are extensively conjugated:
Verb "avoir" (infinitive) in indicative present: j'ai, tu as, il/elle/on a, nous avons, vous avez, ils/elles ont.
"a" is verb "avoir" (have) in 3rd person singular.
"avec" is a preposition meaning "with"
"elle" never elides and does not need to, since the sound of it is EL which combines well with anything that can follow.
How would you know if a noun is masculine or feminine? Especially when it's a non-living thing. That just doesn't make any sense. It's quite confusing.
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Every language has its own logic, and it's just something to get used to. In French, all nouns are either masculine or feminine. It helps to learn not that a newspaper is "journal" but that it's "un journal".
Its ... frustrating that you just have to learn the genders of all words because "That's the way it is" and not because there are actual logical and specific rules to determine this. It's lazy and quite frankly sorry my french - stupid. That felt better, thank you.
I can suggest something if you want to know why a word is masculine or feminine in French: learn Latin and ancient Greek first. In those root-languages, you can find logical links to French genders in most cases.
Iam totally confused,lost but I really need to learn this language coz I have to pass my French paper
very disappointed. It told me to "write this in french" so I wrote "this in french" how come I got the answer wrong!!!! :(
Can someone explain why "Elle avez une journal" is incorrect please. I thought avez was has?
