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- Topic: French >
- "Voulez-vous manger ?"
100 Comments
I know, I know, but they're the only ones I have much first-hand knowledge of. (And if I wasn't a hockey fan who has visited Canada a few times--and was paying attention--I wouldn't know anything about Canadian English {or French} either. Sometimes the US feels like a different planet.)
But if you want to see a really cool and incredibly detailed North Am. English accent map, with clickable sound files and everything, this guy Aschmann put it together--despite the odd URL hashtag this is the main page, scroll down for the large map:
Thank you; very interesting to peruse the complexities found in one area of the world. I'll look out for other maps as English now has so many variations particularly here in Asian regions. About English language history (speaking as we are in a French learning site...!) Melvyn Bragg's The Adventure of English is a good broader brush look at it in a very entertaining format.
327
I know, one is polite and the other is quite direct. As a nearly native French speaker, I translated it as "Would you" and once again got caught by Duo's literal translations. Sometimes we have to read the question or risk getting an error when it's not always an error per se.
591
Agreed! 'Would you like?' over 'Do you want?' every time - unless you're trying to get a five-year-old to put on his raincoat 'Do you want to get wet?'
Ok, in French, there are three groups of verbs.
* 1st group. verbs, which end with -er (exception: aller - to go). They conjugate so:
Je parle.
Tu parles.
Il parle.
Nous parlons.
Vous parlez.
Ils parlent.
* 2nd group. verbs, which end with -it (there are a few exceptions).
Je finis.
Tu finis.
Il finit.
Nous finissons.
Vous finissez.
Ils finissent.
* 3rd group. There are irregular verbs. You should remember their conjugation, guy! There are some rules, but they aren't important, you will see them when you look at them. For vouloir:
Je veux.
Tu veux.
Il veut.
Nous voulons.
Vous voulez.
Ils veulent (as I remember).
I recommend you a very useful site: les-verbes.com. Simply type your verb and you will see it in all tenses :). Good luck!
I generally do a lesson a few times to practice it, but after failing this particular pronunciation one every time, I decided to do two tests, both of which it still rejected: 1) I asked our French au pair to repeat the phrase and 2) I clicked to start recording then hit play on your own sample speaker. If neither of those pass, how am I supposed to as somebody trying to learn?
We all want to communicate with each other, don't we? We are not all Americans and there has to be a generally accepted norm. For business English and in other formal forums all over the world, we wouldn't even be using the contractions I'm using here. We need to have a polite and understandable English for people everywhere. That's what we are all here to do, to learn clear and understandable general English (French, Spanish) for people who don't live in the same regions.
I understand your point, but that's a very slippery slope to go down. I live in the UK, and most of the people I meet use phrases like "gotta" (for "got to") and "innit" (for "isn't it") in common speech all the time. I'd never expect a language program to accept these as valid words.
There's a very good argument that, for Spanish speakers learning English, it's worthwhile learning to recognise these types of words, but I don't think there's any reason for Duolingo to accept these as valid English answers when learning Spanish.
(and thanks :-) )
I think it is denying these types of responses that is a slipper slope to prescriptivism, a linguistic sin. There's not such thing as "THE LANGUAGE OF ENGLISH", since languages are always evolving. This program is already a few years behind in the development of English; I'd rather it not stay behind while English continues marching along its albeit chaotic path of change.
Can I suggest that you need not presume that prescriptivism is a linguistic sin - that is a rather large generalisation, and doesn't seem true to me. Yes, language does evolve, but not as fast as that. I have taught English to young adults for years and in that time, yes, I've had to adjust to some evolution, but not at the core. People accept that we all (not just Americans) say "I wanna" and other shortenings, but we don't use it in general written communication yet, even after decades of saying it. There is a difference between what we say aloud to people at hand, and what we write to the world at large, despite the informality of social media.
869
Be careful to the order of the words. The correct answer is "Est-ce que vous voulez manger ?"
869
Yes, your translation is perfect. But learners should be aware of the difference between present and conditional : "vouloir" --> "to want", "Je veux" --> "I want", "vous voulez"--> "you want", "Je voudrais" --> litteraly "I would want" ("I would like"), "Vous voudriez" --> litteraly "you would want" (you would like).
394
Twice Duo has rejected my "Would you like to eat," which is a bit more polite than "Do you want to eat?" Perhaps Duo needs to learn some manners!
394
"Would you like to eat?" is much closer to the true French meaning. "Do you want to eat?" is cruder, more direct and less polite. I do not think that kind of abruptness is what the French speaker means when he uses "voulez-vous."
869
Voulez-vous mangez ? is a formal way of asking (use of inversion, use of vous which is a formal way if you speak to a single person).
I believe that your proposal is far from being formal.
385
Hi Chris from west Yorkshire England here do you want , would you like , Same but different ☹️
504
"Would you like to eat? should be correct. "Je voudrais" was marked wrong as "I want"and the "correct" answer was "I would like." Sooo.... why is "what you would like to eat" wrong and "What do you want to eat" correct? "Would like"= "want" in American English.