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- Topic: French >
- "Elle a aussi les documents."
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So, does this mean "She also has the documents, in addition to some other things," or "she also has the documents, which other people also have"? Is there any distinction between how you'd express those two concepts? The written English is a little ambiguous.
elle a aussi les documents = on top of other things
elle aussi a les documents = as well as other people
Thanks, Tiercelet, I had the same question. I don't think Sitesurf really has any need for lingots, so here's one for you.
You should write this in translate.google (french to english): le le le le le le le le le le le le le le le le les les les les les les les les les les les les les les les les You have to hear it 100x. And ready.
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"le" sounds a bit like "luh"; "les" is similar to "lay" <or> "lait". As a matter of fact, practice listening to and saying "le lait". That will give you both sounds. They are distinctly different and you will learn to hear the difference. More experienced speakers will correct my amateurish explanation of these sounds but this will get you close.
I wrote: 'she also has the papers' and I got in return that I should have written 'She also hasthe papers'. And that I had a space too many??
This happened to me also. It seems to be a typo in that particular accepted answer. I have used the Report button to notify the admins.
We may leave it for a while, just in case someone else comes up with the same question, and then I'll just have to say "please read the above"! ;-)
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No, please leave it for the other people to see it. I had the same question and so you both helped me. thanks.
From my understanding you would put "aussi" at the end of a longer compounded sentence:
"Je parle l'anglais et lui aussi" = "I speak English and so does he / she."
In a short sentence declaring that someone also does something you'd include it earlier.
"Je parle aussi l'anglais." = I also speak English.
Actually, I see no difference in the meaning when placing "aussi" at the end. And it is correct.
Would that format suffer from a similar ambiguity to the English 'she also has the documents' - as opposed to the examples you gave earlier for specifying the two, does the aussi at the end make it less clear? Just out of interest. Cheers.
"aussi" at the end would not change the meaning not make the sentence less clear.
- elle aussi a des documents (among other people)
- elle a aussi des documents (among other things)
- elle a des documents aussi (ditto)
Hmm I think my question was unclear...I understand the statement still works with the aussi at the end, my query is how one would tell the difference in that format between 'she has documents as well as those other things' and 'she also has documents as well as those other people'...seems to me it would be as ambiguous as the english 'she also has the documents'.
As a native speaker, I hear quite clearly that she says "les" and not "le". You'll need to train your ear, no better way :)
The article should sound different. Try listening to it a little (e.g. here: http://www.acapela-group.com/text-to-speech-interactive-demo.html)
You can think of it like this : le = 'luh' les = 'lay' That's how they're pronounced, so that's how you can tell if it's singular or plural.
she too has the documents = elle aussi a les documents: as well as some other people
she also has the documents = elle a aussi les documents: as well as some other things
Yes you do, because these documents are specified by "les". If it were the meaning of "some documents" or just "a number of documents", the French sentence would have "des documents" (plural of "un document").
