"Which one is red, which one is white?"
Translation:Laquelle est rouge, laquelle est blanche ?
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For my exercise, I had to check off all possible answers. I was given "Lequel est rouge, lequel est blanc" and "laquelle... lequel". I picked only the one with both masculine, my reason being that "which ones" would refer to the same 'ones', whatever they are, and they can't change grammatical gender in one sentence. Is Duolingo missing something here, or am I?
You must have overlooked a word other than "lequel", because the correct answer is indeed the one with both objects being masculine, as it's shown above. Strictly speaking, it wouldn't be incorrect to use one object feminine and one object masculine (or even both feminine), as we don't have any context, we don't know exactly what question we're asking.
I know "lequel... lequel" is correct; that was never the issue. It's how you can refer to the same things as both "laquelle" and "lequel". I am very confident that I didn't overlook anything.
I suppose you could be talking about different "ones". Maybe, which dress and which pants. Laquelle (quelle robe) est rouge, lequel (quel pantalon) est blanc? Does that make sense? Maybe I got tripped up in punctuation, because I'd have those as fully separate sentences.
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I don't understand how you come up with the same ones here. One is red and one is white. They are different ones.
In those types of questions, you have to select the answers applicable to all possibilities of "one." You don't know what "one" refers to. So, it could be either masculine or feminine.
So using "Laquelle " in both " Which one " 's of my exercise, " Which one is rouge, which one is white means I should of used "blanche " for the white not blanc ?
If so, I wish Duo had only changed the " blanc " NOT the " Laquelle" 's as it gave a false impression. That you can not use the femine for "which "' in this sentence rather than must match the Colour gender to that of the gender of the ' which one " you choose to use?
Duo can't choose "correctly" in these cases, because there's no correct answer, it can't know if you were trying to use "lequel" instead of "laquelle" or if you were trying to use "blanc" instead of "blanche", it has to decide arbitrarily which one will be displayed as an error.
A solution could be to display all possible correct answers, but apparently the devs don't think it's a good idea, maybe because they don't want to overwhelm learners, given that many sentences have several different translations. I don't know.
I think. You might be missing something there or possibly mem like you i checked the possibilities but settled for one gender "laquelle". However it is possible that "la quelle est rouge=feminine for the first part of the sentence; and the second part, "lequel est blanc". But I decided on trying to quess dl reaction to my combined gender and settled for the feminine only version. Help!
We have planned for all combinations, as already explained a few times on this thread.
If you use "laquelle" (pronoun), it means the noun replaced is feminine, therefore, its adjective has to use the feminine form if it has one.
"Une robe blanche." = "Laquelle est blanche?"
"Un pantalon blanc." = "Lequel est blanc?"
The English question looks like a comma splice to me.
- "une chose" is feminine
- lequel, laquelle, lesquels an lesquelles are pronouns, not to be used in front of a noun (pronoun = used in replacement for a noun)
- "quelle chose...?" would be fine if the English were "which thing...?"
There weren't two 'laquelle's to pick from in my exercise only two 'lequel's https://puu.sh/A67Gq/4ae6cb43cf.png so this exercise is misleading and unhelpful at the moment
The options to select for the solution must be wrong. Laquelle est rouge, laquelle est blanche is according to Duolingo the correct answer, but there is no blanche to select and two lequel but only one laquelle
Reminder: nouns and pronouns are gendered.
If you did not find "laquelle" (feminine singular) and "blanche", maybe there was "lequel" (masculine singular) which works as well with "blanc".
"blanche" wasn't even offered in the list of words, only blanc, so "laquelle est rouge, lequel est blanc" should have been right...or blanche is missing from the word selection tiles.
"lequel" and "laquelle" are not nouns, so they don't have any gender, but you're right, "lequel" is used for masculine nouns and "laquelle" for feminine nouns
They are pronouns, though, so they do have their own gender as nouns have.
Well I don't see things this way. For me a pronoun is used accordingly to the gender of the noun he's replacing, but it doesn't give pronouns a gender.
For example if you use "Un de ces chiens est à moi." "lequel ?", we know that "chien" is masculine, so we use "lequel", there is no reason to say that "lequel" has the masculine gender. It's just a replacement for a masculine noun.
At least that's how I see pronouns, but maybe it's not true according to the "Académie Française".
For sure pronouns replace nouns and take their gender and number.
Still, in general, pronouns are said to have a gender (and a number), be them personal (il/elle), possessive (le mien, la mienne), demonstrative (celui, celle)... just a convention.
for learners interested in lequel, laquelle, etc... http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/lequel.htm
"which one is red/lequel est rouge" is singular; "which ones are red/lesquels sont rouges" would be plural
Theoretically, you could show two piles of things, one pile of masculine things and one pile of feminine things and ask: laquelle est rouge, lequel est blanc ?
"rouge" and "blanc" are adjectives which agree with the noun/pronoun they modify.
so if you associate "lequel" with "blanc", the adjective remains masculine; if you use "laquelle", "blanc" has to become "blanche" in feminine.
All colors are masculine in French, including red and white.
"Le blanc, le rouge."
In this sentence, we're not talking about colors, but colored objects, so "rouge" and "blanc" are not nouns, but adjectives.
As English doesn't have gender for nouns, the French sentence could be describing either:
- two objects using masculine nouns
- the first object using a feminine noun, the second object using a masculine noun
- the first object using a masculine noun, the second object using a feminine noun
- two objects using feminine nouns
As a result, we have four possible translations, all equally acceptable:
- "Lequel est rouge, lequel est blanc."
- "Laquelle est rouge, lequel est blanc."
- "Lequel est rouge, laquelle est blanche."
- "Laquelle est rouge, laquelle est blanche."
Note that "blanc" changes to "blanche" if the described noun is feminine, while "rouge" stays unchanged.
"blanc" is masculine singular; "blanche" is feminine singular, "blancs" is masculine plural and "blanches" is feminine plural.
What's the difference between Le qu'elle/la qu'elle And Le quel/la quelle
"lequel, laquelle, lesquels, lesquelles" are interrogative words meaning "which one?" (singular) or "which (ones)?" (plural).
"le qu'elle/la qu'elle" are impossible constructions.
If you need laquelle twice in the answer, then there should be two of them in the choices. Otherwise it is confusing.
