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- "Which are your shoes?"
"Which are your shoes?"
Translation:Quelles sont tes chaussures ?
55 Comments
So here lesquelles and quelles are interchangeable seems. If the french sentence would have been 'Which color are your shoes' then the correct translation would be 'Quelle couleur sont tes chaussures?' and 'Laquelle couleur sont tes chaussures' would have been a wrong translation?
Quelles and lesquelles are not to be used interchangeably. The reason being is that quel/quelle/quels/quelles all have the meaning of what/which while lequel/laquelle/lesquels/lesquelles take it a step further to mean what/which one. The quel group is very vague which is why a noun is required in the phrase to make it complete. The lequel group could stand alone since the noun that is being addressed is already in context with the word (I believe the le- prefix is the reason why, but I'm unsure)
Votre is in reference to a singular object. "votre maison" = "your house" Vos is in reference to multiple objects. "vos maisons" = "your houses".
In the given translation they use "tes" (tu / ta / tes) the informal version.
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I'm asked to translate "Which are your shoes?" into French
Apparently both the following are correct: 1. Lesquelles sont tes chaussures? 2. Quelles sont tes chaussures
Why is that? I thought Lesquelles and Quelles wasn't interchangeable
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Advanced students on this board suggest that they have slightly different meaning. Quelles being which and lesquelles being which ones. In conversation you can interchange them but should consider that the latter carries more focus.
Your manner of speech sends signals about yourself. If you typically speak with precision in English because that is just how you speak, then subtle differences that are more a matter of style than definition merit attention. Some people don't understand or care about the difference between which and which ones in English. Other people do understand or care about the difference and it is reflected in their manner of speaking and writing.
Of course, while their meaning is similar to the point of being indistinguishable, their function is not. Quel/s is an adjective. Lequel/s is a pronoun. Different rules of grammar apply to each.
I thought 'quelles' would be used as an adjective (with a noun) and 'lesquelles' as a pronoun (without), but this suggested correct answer seems to disprove it. Am I altogether mistaken?
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Duo's system is that they take a phrase in either French or English, translate it and then put together sound tracks representing each language. Once all that is done they then start posing questions using these phrases.
They will take the phrase from one language and use it as a test question expecting to get the appropriate translation. They will also use the same phrase in the alternate language to test in the opposite direction.
Additionally, they will use the sound track of each phrase twice, once in each language. As well, they will pose the same phrase in multiple choice questions. In the multiple choice questions, and occasionally in others, no suggested correct answer is given.
Apparently in an effort to reduce the number of comments pages, each method of posing a phrase leads to the same comments page. Thus each student posting comments on a thread will be responding to a specific presentation of a phrase which may very likely be different from someone else on the same thread.
Sometimes it's difficult to answer questions posted on comments pages because the poster seems to be talking about a different example of the phrase.
In this case, the example I had was exactly like the one at the top. When I answered it correctly, exactly like the top of the page, no other answer was suggested. That means I don't know what the suggested correct answer actually suggested. For that matter I don't even know for sure whether your example was posed in English or French. Mine was English to French.
You are correct that quelles is an adjective (which). You are correct that lesquelles is the pronoun form. You have the word without in brackets in your post as if you consider that to be a definition for lesquelles. If so, that is not a usage that I have seen. What advanced French speakers on this board have suggested that it is good to think of lesquelles as meaning which ones to distinguish it from quelles/ which. If that is what you were wondering if you were mistaken about, then I hope this helps.
Many if not most students post here on he assumption that everybody is starting from the exact same example. But it's clear from looking a lots of comments pages that isn't how it works. This long comment is to encourage you as well as others to try to put more information in their posts.
TL; DR: Give more information in your comment if you want a useful response from people about your difficulty.
Thank you I was wondering myself how the comment system worked, though I believed the comments were realatable enough for each subject
Why is "lesquelles chaussures sont à vous?" incorrect? I'm missing an indication why it has to be "... a toi?"
- 1316
Lesquelles chaussures sont à vous = which shoes are to you.
As for your question about why it has to be "....a toi?" I'm not sure what you are referring to. The correct answer is at the top of this page.
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I assumed both could be used depending on whether there was one or more pairs of shoes. I can only assume that in this case just as in English it is the same for both singular and plural.
'ta' is used with singular feminine noun, 'ton' singular masculine, and 'tes' for plural
Which are your shoes? <-- Question
Quelles sont tes chaussures? <-- Answer
Tes is use when there is one person involved (your)
Sont is used when many people are involved (they)
Don't these conflict, and why? Shouldn't it be either sont vos or etes tes?
And is there a specific reason to use Quelles here?
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Ton = your singular masculine informal
Ta = your singular feminine informal
Tes = your plural informal
Votre = your singular masculine and feminine formal
Vos = your plural formal.
Quelles (pl) sont (pl) tes (pl informal) chaussures (pl)
My understanding comes from this
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080218081915AAiJHDW
Is it wrong?
- 1316
From your link: Tes - your (several things that belong to you)
Remember that tes applies to the object possessed not the owner. Tes is plural form because chaussures is plural. It makes no difference whether one person or many people own the shoes. What counts is how many shoes are owned. In this case, more than one shoe.
Just like with adjectives where their form is sometimes the only way to know whether an object is plural or not, so with pronouns. You don't need to hear the S on the end of chaussures to know it's plural because ta singular feminine is easily distinguished from tes plural infomal. If you hear tes then you know it's object is plural.
This is a tough one for me, the link above clearly distinguishes Tes, as you copied it, as belonging to you, and vos as belonging to you all or to you respectfully.
Then you have this site http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/adjectives_possessive.htm
That shows your (tu form) and your (vous form) as being tes and vos respectfuly. Which agrees with the first website because as we know tu is familiar and singular and vous is formal and both singular and plural regarding the audience not the object.
You might be right, but everything I'm seeing tells me otherwise, I'll keep the duolingo format and keep an eye out for other material.
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In French adjectives must agree with the noun they modify. If the noun is feminine/ masculine, singular/ plural then the adjective must be as well.
It is the same with pronouns. They have to agree with the object not the subject.
It is il mange sa pomme not il mange son pomme even though the sentence means he is eating his apple. His must agree with feminine singular pomme not Il therefore it is sa pomme not son pomme.
In English we have only one form of your which means either singular of plural.
EG: Jim, here is your test paper. Class, here are your test papers. But French has gender and number forms for your. They must agree with the object.
Chaussures is feminine plural so any pronoun attached to it must be plural. In the case of your plural there are no gender considerations. There are two plural forms of your. They are tes and vos.
The site you link to lists tes as your plural informal so it is one of the forms that can be attached to a plural object. The other is vos if you want to use formal plural.
In your post you wrote ....This is a tough one for me, the link above clearly distinguishes Tes, as you copied it, as belonging to you, and vos as belonging to you all or to you respectfully...... Maybe you made a typo there but let me say that tes means your. Vos means your. They do not mean you and you all. Nor does the site say they do. They have nothing do with whether you refers to one person or many.
The first part of the sentence is irrelevant. What counts is the number and gender of the noun referred to, which in this case is chaussures. It is the object of ownership that counts not the subject .
Thanks for the explanation, but I'm confused. How come there are so many things for your?!?!?!
Like so many things in French, the "your" varies depending on many factors.
"Votre" = your, formal/plural singular. "Votre chien." Your dog. Dog is definitely singular. (Though gender doesn't matter with votre/vos.. Votre jupe - singular feminine skirt, is the same thing.) "Vos" = your, formal/plural plural. "Vos manteaux." Your coats. Coats are plural.
"Ton" = your, informal/singular/masculine. "Ton travail." Your job. Job is singular and masculine. "Ta" = your, informal/singular. "Ta mère." Your mother. Mother is singular and feminine. "Tes" = informal plural only. "Tes robes." Your dresses. Dresses is plural. (Gender doesn't matter with tes.)
Additionally, feminine things that start with a vowel, when addressing the informal "you" (tu), are "ton auto," not "ta auto."
Hope that helps!
Quelles sont tes (ou vos) chaussures? = Which ARE your shoes?
Quel est ton (ou votre) chaussure? = Which IS your shoe. Does that help?
*"Quelle est ta (ou votre) chaussure ?" (UNE chaussure (fem.), as you had written in "quelles... chaussures") - just to correct the spelling mistakes, if you don't mind
I'm never really "gone." I just haven't done any exercises in a while. Still active on comments. And I'll probably be using duolingo more now, as class is over, and my "permanent vacation" has now started. (Though, I'm looking for work, and I have an appointment today to explore other options for courses.)
I'm finding it very annoying with these English-to-French translation questions where you're offered two answers that are both correct, but still get docked a heart for not picking the other one.
For example, in this question I chose "Quelles sont vos chaussures?" (Which are your (FORMAL) shoes?). That and "Quelles sont tes chaussures?" (Which are your (FAMILIAR) shoes?) are both technically correct. So why do I keep getting docked a heart for answering "incorrectly" when I choose one correct answer over another correct answer?
Because the question isn't an either/or proposition. It clearly tells you to mark ALL correct translations. So really then, if you're only answering half the question, you can't expect to get the question correct. Maybe Duolingo should penalise you half a heart for missing half the answer.
Because "ses" means "his" or "her," not "your." "Your" (when the possessed noun is plural) is "tes" or "vos".
No. "Vos" is "your" (either formal or for the plural "you") for plural nouns, and "ton" is "your" for singular nouns. "Tes" is often the same thing as "vos."
I'm just plain confused on the translation of this sentence.... Could someone please explain to me because I have no clue and I don't get the two solutions to this. All I know is vos is plural for something...
Quelles = which (plural, feminine). Sont = are (third person, plural). Vos = your (more below). Chassures = shoes (feminine plural noun).
The words for "your" in French are: votre, vos, ton, ta, tes. There are two factors to consider when selecting the word to use for "your."
The first is who is possessing something, the "you" for the "your". If it either someone you would speak to formally or more than one person, you use the "your" that goes with "vous," which is either vos or votre. If it is a single person you would address informally, you use the "your" that goes with "tu," which is ton, ta, or tes.
The second factor is what is being possessed. If the thing being possessed is singular, and you are using the "vous" version, then you use "votre," regardless of the gender of the object (votre chien, votre voiture). If the object is plural and you are using the "vous" version, then you use "vos" regardless of gender (vos chassures, vos chandails). If you are using the informal "tu" version, it depends on both singular/plural AND gender of the object being possessed. "Tes" is for plural things, regardless of gender (tes chaussures, tes vêtements), "ton" is for a singular, masculine object (ton verre), and "ta" is for a singular, feminine object (ta robe).
I must of asked this a long time ago because I have figured it out. But thanks anyway, I really appreciate it! :D
is "Quels sont vos chaussures" wrong? i thought shoes in french is masc.????
Nope. La chaussure is feminine, as is La botte (boot) But the moccasin and the wellington appear to be masculine. Ho Hum.
The example above is in the familiar (informal as you call it) form. If your lesson was to translate from English to French then both familiar (Tu, Tes form), formal and plural (Vous/Vos form) should be accepted. (Be careful with "Tu". It is best understood as Familiar rather than Informal. One can be both familiar and formal using Tu/Te/Tes but can not be both informal and formal at once).
i am confused between lesquels, lesquelles , quelles , they all means which ones ??
@ slimz7. I'm very likely over simplifying here but "quel (quelle/quuels/quelles)" seem to work with "Which" and "Lequel (lequelle/lequels/lequelles)" seems to work with "Which ONES". (There's allsorts of grammar stuff going on with their appropriate use which I'm only beginning to understand.) But so far, this simple quide has worked for me.
They have been telling me "chaussures" for shoes now all of a sudden It's the wrong word and"souliers" would have been correct. Can anyone tell me why?
