Faire a + infinitive"Ce soir, je fais à dîner." When I first read this example, I read the word, "diner" as a noun, (As in "Ce soir je fais le diner").
But after reading through the questions and seeing the example, "Je fais a manger", I suspect that it is really the infinitve form of the verb, "diner" = "to eat dinner".
This is a new expression for me. Am I understanding correctly that one can say, for example:
"Je fais a coudre" = I am sewing.
"Il fait a dessiner" = He is drawing.
"Nous faisons a dejeuner" = We are making lunch.
"Les enfants font a nettoyer leur chambre" = The children are cleaning up their room"
-?
And, I suspect that this expression would only be used when there is a concrete or tangible result of the action, ie."Vous faites a nager" might not work.
Thanks in advance for any explanation.
Is there a lesson on this? If not, it might be helpful to add one.
other than le jeudi prochain, I thought I saw somewhere that there was a way in French to be more specific. For some reason something like le quinzième comes to mind. Can anyone clarify this for me? Thanks, Ken
I am finding this one tricky, because in Québec (where I am living and learning French), professeure is standard (and indeed, is my job title). Is there any way to account for or acknowledge regional differences in spelling and usage within Kwiziq?
In a fill-in-the-blank quiz on this topic (Les enfants au restaurant)
I had written as an answer:
"Je crois qu'elle trouve plus rigolo de manger dans mon assietteplutôt que dans le sien!"
The correct answer was "...que dans la sienne."
My logic was that:
1. the pronouns takes the gender and number of the thing being replaced
...what is being replaced is "her plate," which had just been established as masculine.
2. In French, the possessive pronouns agree with the thing possessed and not the owner
3. The possessor is a singular girl, which would explain where a singular feminine "la sienne" COULD come from.
So, why does the correct answer seem to reference the possessor and not the possessed object in this example?
Here is a link to the song on YouTube, which works for me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up_IUfCFHao
I struck a problem with moitie/demi- not a problem with French, but with the English sentence in the exercise. If an English speaker says "I ate half a chicken", it is not possible for an English-speaking person to be certain what the English speaker means. It could mean EITHER he consumed 50% of a chicken OR that he bought half a chicken and ate it all. My point is, that one cannot divine the English speaker's meaning without more information. It follows, in this case, that a test question that demands a choice made between moitie or demi cannot be incorrect. Here, I think, the subtlety (or the casualness) of English speech has not been understood.
"Ce soir, je fais à dîner." When I first read this example, I read the word, "diner" as a noun, (As in "Ce soir je fais le diner").
But after reading through the questions and seeing the example, "Je fais a manger", I suspect that it is really the infinitve form of the verb, "diner" = "to eat dinner".
This is a new expression for me. Am I understanding correctly that one can say, for example:
"Je fais a coudre" = I am sewing.
"Il fait a dessiner" = He is drawing.
"Nous faisons a dejeuner" = We are making lunch.
"Les enfants font a nettoyer leur chambre" = The children are cleaning up their room"
-?
And, I suspect that this expression would only be used when there is a concrete or tangible result of the action, ie."Vous faites a nager" might not work.
Thanks in advance for any explanation.
Is there a lesson on this? If not, it might be helpful to add one.
I know this lesson is about the plus que parfait but to say "had to", can you also use the passé composé? For example, he had to leave before 5. "Il a dû partir à 5 heures.
sometimes its je leur parle sometimes je parle aux leur,; how do we know which is which. think im missing something here
In the lesson about dimensions, you say "Note that in this case the adjectives haut/long/large/profond agree in gender and number with the subject they refer to."
But you only give a gender agreement example for "profond". Do "haut" or "long " or "large" change spelling with gender?
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