"Ce sont ses grands vêtements."
Translation:These are his big clothes.
32 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
it is technically correct, but these is the better option in this case. They refers to them being somewhere else while these refers to them being there. It is situational, so duolinguo should probably fix that
I don't understand why it can't be "These are their big clothes."
Since ses doesn't specify a gender, surely a gender neutral pronoun can't be incorrect?
From my understanding if you wanted to say their if would be leurs
Posseive single goes like: Son (his/her/its for male object) Sa (his/her/its for female object) Leur (theirs for female or male object) Notre (our for female or male object)
Posseive plurals go like: Ses (his/her/its for both female or male objects) Leurs (theirs for female and male objects) Nos (our for female or male objects)
So
"Ses grands vetements" Can be his big garments Her bug garments Or its big garments
While if you wanted to say their big garments
You would need to say "Leurs grands vetements"
Same as yellowsnake.... "They are" Is not accepted? Anyone know if I've missed something here?
Cheers.
vêtements here is defined only as 'clothes'. Yet prior to this it was 'clothing items'.
I see this thing too! So how do they expect us to give the correct answer if they gave us a wrong idea in their previous teaching?
Here in "Ce sont", "ce" is a pronoun. The pronoun "ce" remains as "ce" doesn't matter if it is representing "this/that/these/those/feminine/masculine". When use as a pronoun, "ce" should be used with "etre", for example: "Ce est ton fils/Ce sont mes robes"
When "ce" is a adjectives, like other adjectives, it must agree with the nouns they modify. For ex. (ce/cet for Masculine Singular; ces for both gender plural; etc.)
Here, we cannot say "ces sont ses grands vetements", since "ces" is only a adjective; but we can say "Ces vetements sont ses grands vetements". Hope this will help!
ok, so thank you very much for giving your time but I'm not very convinced. Adjectives give quality to a noun and should agree with the noun in gender and number. In the example you gave grands is an obvious adjective. But whats the quality of "ce/s"? I am saying this from ignorance. I do not understand. I know that I don't know/ I'm not trying to correct you. From what I understand, ce is indeed a "pronom démonstratif" and I was under the impression that a verb must agree to the subject. Usually a noun. The pronoun being in place of the noun should dictate the gender and number to the verb. Now I am thinking about this and I come to the following conclusion: if you invert the sentence, its maybe clearer. "Ses grands vetements (the subject) sont ça". From here its obvious that the verb must agree to the "ses grands vetements" and that "ce sont" makes sense. And yet, some pronouns are plural, so why not "ces sont"? I bet if i could understand https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronom_d%C3%A9monstratif I would know why, but I can't. Anyways, thanks for joining the discussion!
I hate that no matter how much I try to pronounce these sentences, it tells me I'm not pronouncing a single word correctly. That is irritating.
Doesn't the adjective preceding the noun indicate that the meaning is more figurative? I.e., "These are her great clothes"?
Pretty sure this is right...I took an advanced French class at my university this year and one of the grammar points we studied included adjectives that change meaning depending on where they're placed. For example, "un pauvre homme" means a pitiful man while "un homme pauvre" means a poor man. I remember "grand" being included in the material, where "un grand homme" meant a great/important man and "un homme grand" meant a tall man. As far as I know that distinction is an exception to BANGS, but I don't know if it only applies to people or if it can be extended further.
I often use "their" instead of his or her and it's marked as wrong. Is there a good reason for this?
If you wanted to say theirs in french, you would need to say leurs
I think in french "their/theirs" is a plural third party most of the time and maybe isnt used much to indicate a single third party person.
So i think in proper translation you cant use sa, son, ses to mean 'their/thiers' so its just something you need to remember is a difference in french and english when translating.
I put this is his big clothes. It corrected me by saying "this is his big clothing" with clothing underlined. Then when i click here for comments, it now says I should have said "these are his big clothes". So apparently the issue with my sentence was this vs these, and had nothing to do with clothing vs clothes (which, i believe, means the same thing, does it not?)
Could anyone offer insight into this particular issue? At this point, it's just very confusing.
"This" refers to a singular item. "These" refer to multiple items. "Vêtements" is plural; thus, one needs to use "these."
Also, the "sont" lets you know to use "these" not "this" - "C'est" would indicate "this."
1959
What would "grands" mean in this context of clothing to a French speaker? "Large" as in the size on the label? "Thick" as in winter clothes? Or "tall" as in to fit "grands" people? Thanks.
I'm having hard enough time figuring out what big clothes are? IS tht supposed to mean several sizes too large??? Huh????
- 1431
SES est un adjectif possessif ,le singulier aurait voulu :SON CE sont ses grands vêtements. NOUS aurions pu dire aussi ce sont SES grandes robes . L'adjectif qualificatif s'accorde en genre et en nombre(féminin ,masculin, singulier pluriel)