"You are eating rice."
Translation:Tu manges du riz.
17 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
What is the difference between the 'you form' "manges," and the 'you form' "mangez" ?
1135
You mean phonetically ? If it is the case, "Manges" sounds like "Mange", i.e. "MANJ'", whereas "Mangez" sounds like "MAN-JEH".
No, not phonetically, I mean literally. I got the answer wrong because I typed "manges" and not "mangez."
- 1135
Sorry. Well in this case, both should be correct. Without context "Tu manges du riz" et "Vous mangez du riz" both translate into "You are eating rice".
That's what I deduced, but apparently it is incorrect; hence, the question.
"Tu manges du rice" is informal, like talking to a friend, but "Vous mangez du riz" is formal like for talking to a stranger or elder.
Maybe you got it wrong because you mixed the form "tu manges" and "vous mangez". You probably typed "tu mangez" or "vous manges"
Why is du necessary? Riz is rice. Vous mangez/tu manges is "you are eating" -- I'd just like to better understand the context in which du is necessary, and when it isn't.
"du" is a conjugation of the preposition "de" and the definite article "le" so you will never see "de le" in French although you will see "de la" for the feminine or "de l'" for words that begin with a vowel or an H that isn't pronounced such as l'homme.
also, there are some verbs where you are automatically assumed to be talking about all of something like when you say "I love rice" it is "J'aime les riz" instead of "du riz" because it means you love rice in general, not any specific rice.
So "I like rice" = "j'aime les riz" while "I like the (or this) rice" = "j'aime du riz"?
Other way around - "J'aime du riz" = I like rice in general, whereas "J'aime les riz" = I like this particular rice. Du/de/de la can be translated to some/general/indefinite, while le/la/les can be translated to the/specific
Why is du necessary here, why wouldn't it just be tu manges riz? Wouldn't you are eating some rice be tu manges du riz?
the way the article "du" is used here, it's just how they speak. Don't try to make sense of it in English, it won't help you at all. It's the same way in Spanish, Italian etc. There must be an article.
Du and de la mean the same thing. Du just goes along with masculine and de la is for feminine
