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- Topic: French >
- "Sa fille ? Il l'attend."
33 Comments
it is sentences like these that make me realise how little a grasp of the language i actually have.
I heard this as Ca fille - "that girl" - or would it have been "Cette fille"?
you could not have "ça fille" because "ça" is not an adjective but a pronoun.
"that girl" is indeed "cette fille"
Question or not question, the meaning is the same because you could have had:
"his daughter, he is waiting for her" - "sa fille, il l'attend"
or
"his daughter... he is waiting for her" - "sa fille... il l'attend".
No, because unlike in English "attendre" is a transitive verb, ie, no preposition needed. The construction in English would be the same with the verb "to await": "he is awaiting her"
1315
Thank you for your valuable help. I can see I'm going to have to study up on this French/English transitive verb thing.
B.T.W. proposition vs. preposition again. It may help as a flag for prop/prep confusion to reflect on the meaning of the act of propositioning someone. To advance a proposition itself is a matter of fact thing to do and a quite frequent expression.
However, to proposition a person (without any other context) is taken as unseemly behavior, usually sexual in nature. An inducement is being offered (positive or negative) that may compromise the victims better judgement. If a woman says that a man propositioned her no one would think that he was talking about real estate or whatever.
It's not a big deal. I just offer this as way to help spot a common typo. You expressed frustration over the last one.
"attendre" is directly transitive so the direct object form of "il" or "elle" is "le, la, l' "
"lui" is the indirect object form of "il/elle" to be used when the verb is constructed with preposition à, like "donner à quelqu'un":
- il lui donne un gâteau (he gives him/her or he gives to him/her)
Thats great, but the program still counted me wrong when I put a comma instead of a question mark.
- 1027
Don't put punctuation (just the spaces) and you will be fine. In real life you will pick your own sentences, so don't bother. ;)
I know that this doesn't apply to u guys but wouldnt it be ' Sa fille? Il attend pour elle.
"Attendre" is a directly transitive verb, which means that it does not need any preposition.
Awaits, maybe, but to wait is intransitive in English, so you need to say waits for.
It should be (in a non literal translation"It's his dauther, he is waiting for", His daughter? He is waiting for her. dosen't exactly make sense. But in French it dosen't feel right either... Can someone explain this to me?
- 417
I would call that a regional dialect form of "waiting for". In standard English, "waiting on" implies servitude - "He waits on her, hand and foot," "The restaurant was so busy, the owner himself had to wait on us".
Hi there, would appreciate it if someone is able to explain to me why it is Il l'attend, and not Il s'attend.
In my mind:
"Il l'attend" = He waits for it
I'l s'attend" = He waits for him/her
Any clarification would be appreciated. Thank you :)
"Sa fille" (with a possessive) means and translates to "his/her daughter".
"Sa" is feminine because "fille" is feminine.
Therefore "sa fille" can mean "his daughter or "her daughter", "son fils" is "his/her son", "ses enfants" is "his/her children".
In this sentence, you know that "sa fille" is "his daughter", because the subject of "attend" is "il" and the convention is that the object belongs to the subject.
