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- "Les enfants aiment le lait."
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there is no bien or beaucoup! is the sentence grammatically wrong? or else it would mean love not like. agree?
Hi everyone just a quick question for all of you.
•*So I put 'children' as 'enfants' but, my question is: Can I put 'kids' as 'enfants'? Or does it have to be 'children'?? Thanks in advance ◉‿◉
If the english sentence is "children like milk", then why isn't the french "les enfants aiment du lait"
Generalities are used with definite article in French (le/la/les)
- LE vin rouge contient du tanin
- ils n'aiment pas LA soupe
- LES légumes sont bons pour la santé
Hi, thanks for this. But I thought that if I wanted to say "I'm eating rice", that I would say "je mange du riz" ? Isn't this the same situation?
I've seen Sitesurf's answer to this elsewhere - "manger" is just an action verb, only the "appreciative verbs" (liking, hating, prefering, etc) take the definite article le/la/les for the generality.
You cannot love or like a part of feelings. Then, the verbs AIMER or ADORER or any other verbs like LOVE or LIKE don't need the partitive article DU. You like rice (all rice). But, you eat a part of the rice. J'AIME LE RIZ (I like all rice) / JE MANGE DU RIZ (I eat a part of rice).
because "du" means "some" in this context. When we talk about food, using the determinative article (de, du, de la) is used to design the kind of food (du fromage, du lait, de l'eau)...
Same. In French, "le, la, les" are used both for specific/particular things and general/generic things. Context tells whether it is specific or general.
But it marks it as incorrect if you answer "The children like milk" or "The children love milk"... which are both also correct translations
"Les enfants aiment le lait" can be about "all children in the world/children in general"
= Children like milk
or, "these specific children here/mentioned just before"
= The children like milk
In either case "aiment le lait" is a "like" and not a "love", otherwise the French would be "adorent le lait".
- 787
If you're discussing specific children, talking about specific milk (perhaps something special from a local farm), how would you say, "The children like the milk"?
There are conventions to translate "aimer, aimer bien, adorer" to and from "to like, to love".
- Aimer quelqu'un = to love someone
- Aimer bien quelqu'un = to like someone
- Aimer quelque chose = to like something
- Aimer + infinitive = to like + infinitive/present participle
- Adorer quelqu'un = to adore someone
- Adorer quelque chose = to love something
- Adorer + infinitive = to adore + infinitive/present participle
"Des enfants aiment le lait" would mean "some children like milk".
With "les", either the sentence is a generalization (all children like milk) or it refers to some specific children (the children like milk).
why do you do this? literally the previous exercise had "Le" i skipped it cuz in English is not necessary to say "the" and i got it wrong. now i write "the children" because of how precise you want me to be and i get it wrong, why do you have so many arbitrary rules?
Please read the explanations already given on this page regarding the translation for "like/love" to/from "aimer/aimer bien/adorer".
I understand why it is written in French, but what i don't understand is the omission of the articles in English since the sentence can make sence with or without them.
How can you tell the difference between a generality and a specific amount?
With appreciation verbs(*), the direct object automatically gets a definite article (le, la, les) and the context will tell you if the milk is on the table now or if it's "milk in general".
(*) Aimer, aimer bien, adorer, apprécier, préférer, détester, haïr, respecter, admirer, estimer.
I can understand the verb when I read it because the front end of the forms are the same, but I cant make many sentences yet. :| There's so much to consider already when deciding on a verb & then object! Gender, pronoun, plurals... How is anybody feeling on top of it already? I suppose more drilling it is...
