61 Comments
I asked a native french speaker about this phrase and they confirmed to me that this phrase would mean "I am offering to buy you a drink"
Thanks for that. I was struggling to think of the sensible translation. I used "I am buying you a drink", which worked, but your translation makes much more sense. Thanks!
Note that (1) I'm offering to buy you a drink gets rejected here and (2) the suggested answer is "I buy you a drink" which is dreadful English.
I am pretty sure it is used as a noun here. A boire is an alcoholic beverage. Its the same with buying someone I believe une, verre... which is also an alcoholic beverage. I am sure a moderator will correct me if I am not remembering correctly.
How do I know when Offrir means "to buy" or "to give"? In this case both options would make sense. "I buy you a drink" or "I give you a drink"
It may not come as a surprise that the literal translation of the verb offrir is to offer. Whether there is an implicit purchase associated with the offer of a drink depends on the context of the situation in question, rather than with rules concerning French-to-English translation.
If you're at a bar, to offer somebody a drink would imply that you're buying it for them. If you're at home, to offer somebody a drink would imply that you're giving it to them. As you said, in this sentence the context is ambiguous so either of your translations work. However, "I offer you a drink" is the most literal translation.
So would someone hosting a party, say, in their home use "Je vous offre a boire"? Or is the connotation always that the subject is buying?
Why doesn't "I offer a drink to you." work? In both cases you is in the dative case.
because although that is a (very) literal translation it doesn't make any sense in English
It is grammatical though, and can't be any more weird that 'they are setting the words'.
747
You seem not to have noticed that some of the difficulty in translating sentences from a foreign language is setting the words in the right order.
This particular Duo example is one where setting the words correctly is what the exercise is all about.
It's not grammatical. You can't offer someone "to" drink. You can "offer someone a drink", or "offer someone drink" (old fashioned).
Who would look at someone and say I offer.you a drink. You would say, May I offer you a drink? Or, declaratively: I would like to offer you a drink. Either way, the sentence in thus excerise is missing a few word to make sense. That's it, I am finished with it.
- 469
I almost put "Je t'achète une boisson.", until I floated over the unnatural English phrase "I buy you a drink." and answered correctly. My question is would French speakers really say "Je t'achète une boisson." or "Je vous offre à boire (une boisson)./Je t'offre à boire (une boisson)."? Or would they say it like a question as we do in English (Can I buy/offer you a drink?) in the form of "Je peux vous offre à boire (une boisson)?", "Je peux t'achète une boisson?", "Puis-je vous offre à boire (une boisson)?" or "Puis-je t'achète une boisson?"? Would French people even offer to "buy" a drink as it is stated in the English translation or just "offer" you a drink? Offrir always means offer, in that case "Je vous offre à boire." would only mean 'I offer you a drink.' and not 'I buy you a drink.'.
I lost a heart vecause i translated 'a' as to. Shouldn't it have been 'je offre vous une boire'?
- 1800
Translation isn't always literal word-for-word. This is like saying "I offer you [something] to drink". "'je vous offre une boisson" would be another way of saying it, I think, but "je offre vous une boire" is incorrect.
It's not correct English. You can only offer nouns or noun-like phrases in English. You could say "I offer you something to drink" or "I offer you a drink".
Technically "I offer you drinking" is also a sentence, but it's strange and certainly not something you would say to offer someone a drink in a bar.
Un boire is a noun. This sentence has more problems than the boire interpretation. It probably should be fixed or tossed. Just my opinion.
- 1800
It doesn't mean "a" in English, it means "to". Read the other comments.
Basically "to". It cannot be translated literally and still be sensible: "I offer you to drink". Interpreting that and forming a reasonable English sentence you may get: "I'd like to get you a drink" or "I'll buy you a drink". There are a hundred ways to skin a cat.
- 253
In English you would say: I shout you a drink... but Duo did not know that
Offrir is nowhere else translated as buy. Buy = acheter, give = donner, offrir ?
Count me in as one of many who don't understand why we are using boire in this sentence instead of boisson. Is it implied that we are offering to pay for someone to preform the act of drinking? (I know that sounds funny, but think of it in the sense of "I am offering to take you drinking"). So in this case we're referring to the verb instead of the noun?
Am I completely off base? That's about the only way I can make this work in my head.
This sounds more like an invitation than a literal act of offering to buy someone a drink. Since "boire" is the action of drinking and not the noun of an actual drink (boisson), this sounds like "I offer you to drink" or more correctly in English, "I extend the offer to go drinking", or "I am going drinking and I am extending the offer to you come along" - obviously not a valid translation of the sentence but more figurative in context.
I think a "to" is missing here, as in, "I want to buy you a drink." Right?
Or, they could have put will in there, "I WILL buy you a drink." But this sentence has got to be a no no.
Or use the past tense as in, j'ai vous offert un boire (and you turned me down) for example.
- 1221
Why is "I offer you a drink" considered correct, but "I offer you a beverage" is not?
- 267
Is it cheating to look in a dictionary? From Collins online:
- to offer sb a drink
Elle lui a offert à boire.
"She offered him a drink."
To me it seems like this would transpose to our sentence as
- "I offer you a drink."
This is accepted by Duolingo. Also, it's almost identical to the first post on this thread, from six years ago.
