"Elle écrit un livre."
Translation:She is writing a book.
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Oh this is contusing. The elle is feminine, yes? Yet we still refer to the book as un? I wrote une? I do not understand why we have to adjust the un?
All nouns in French have a gender: masculine or feminine.
Elle is a personal pronoun, obviously reserved for women but also as a substitute to feminine nouns.
"Livre" is masculine, always.
Therefore, there is no tip: you have to learn every noun with its gender.
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Because "un" refers to the book, and "elle" refers to the reader. Different nouns, different genders, and articles and adjectives match the gender and number of the noun they go together with.
( ಥ~ಥ) woe.. woe!.. tu écriS un livre has no liaison, but elle écriT un livre does? will it be, at least, explained later or never?
Please let me quote what Laura says in about.com (this page: http://french.about.com/od/mistakes/a/beginning.htm)
"French accents indicate the correct pronunciation of a word, and are required, not optional. Therefore, you need to make an effort to learn what they mean, which words they are found in, and how to type them. "
Bon courage!
For your information, it is called "acute accent" (é) And on "è", it is a "grave accent" (pronounced like the "e" in "bet")
How can you distinguish the pronunciation of elle ecrit from elles ecritent?
The singular "écrit" ends in the sound -ee: EL EKREE
The plural is "écrivent" and the ending sound is -eeV. In addition, there is a Z liaison between "elles" and "écrivent": EL ZEKREEV
I am confused on the tense. It says "Elle ecrit un livre" translates to "She is writing a book", but wouldn't it be "She writes a book"? Is this generally understood to mean "She is writing a book" in conversation, or is it changing the tense in translation?
No, there are also plenty of masculine nouns ending with an -e. Genders are not ruled by one unique logic, you have to learn them with each noun.
Something is VERY WRONG with Duolingo! Duolingo is accepting two possibles answers: Present continuous and Present simple. It's not just in this exercise, but the majority. "I'm drinking coffee" and "I drink coffee" don't have the same meaning! "I'm drinking coffee" means I'm drinking coffee right now... maybe it's the first time in my life drinking coffee. When I say to somebody "I drink coffee" it means that I've got a habit, I drink frequently.
So, what does "Elle écrit un livre" means? I started the action , but I didn't finish yet. Or it means that I regularly write books, like one per year or one book per month. Which one is correct? Thank you for your help!
"I'm drinking coffee" and "I drink coffee" don't have the same meaning but they have the same translation. French does not have continuous tenses.
In context, it is not difficult to distinguish an action in progress from a habit and this is why the French are not confused with their single present tense.
"Elle écrit un livre" is too short to determine what the context is but with "every year/chaque année" or "currently/en ce moment" you would know.
Since the context is not clear with this short sentence, both translations are accepted: "she writes" and "she is writing".
The audio on this question is messed up. There's no allision between ecrit and un.
This does not make sense. Elisions are meant to avoid vowel sound conflicts. Since "elle" is pronounced "L", it is a consonant sound and, therefore, no elision is needed.
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Why is it j'ecris but not Il/ Elle ecris? Usually it is the same for Il/ Elle, but different for Tu.
