"Can I" and "may I" in EnglishBonjour,
I certainly do not know enough of French culture and language to discuss your explanation of French usage, below. However, I disagree that in English, the difference between "may I" and "can I" is that "may I" is more formal. More accurately, "can I" may be informal and in common usage, yes, but it is also often considered abrupt and somewhat impolite, and this is not only by grammar nerds (or oldies) such as I (or grammar nerds like me, to use more idiomatic speech, ha ha).
The grammatical distinctions are obvious, of course ("can" denoting capacity or ability, "may" is conditional, one is granted capacity). One hears often, when someone is ordering in a cafe or bar, "can I get a... ". To many English-speakers, this is grating and impolite. I, for one, hope that "may I have...", does not go out of idiomatic usage (though perhaps that battle is lost and I am just raving...)
Love Lawless French, by the way,
Alice
"In the case of pouvoir, note that je peux becomes irregular in the inverted form: puis-je, in order to ease pronunciation.
This structure is very formal as we stated before, and is usually used to sound particularly polite or even a bit affected: the nearest English equivalent would be to use May I...?"
Hi, why are we using an indirect object in this case? Is the expression "tenir à/par" to hold someone's hand (by the hand)?
'I always loved...' Why is it in the past tense and not imparfait in French? I felt it was an opinion. (P.S Found this query very well explained below. So please ignore this part.)
Why is apprendre preferred over étudier?
Questions including sentenses like "This bedroom is grey. - Yes, it's grey here." make absolutley no sense to me.
What is "Yes, it's grey here" referring to? The weather, or a completely different bedroom perhaps.
As I have no idea, I have to quess and and so keep getting the answer wrong.
I would be grateful if you could tell me what the question means by using different words.
Hello: I'm wondering why the two phrases "will there be" (popcorn) and "there must be" (mermaids) require avoir rather than être. "Est-ce qu'il y être" doesn't sound right, but I don't why. On the other hand, "il doit être des sirènes" sounds okay. I'd be grateful for an explanation.
Thanks so much!
Why is it "Elle fait exprès d'être en retard." and not "Elle a fait exprès d'être en retard.
I always understood "le conditionnel présent" to mean "could," but here you're indicating that it means "would," which has a completely different meaning. Is that just true with "aller" or how do you tell when it's could or would?
Hello,
I wonder how I should say: "I only told him about it" ?
Is it: "Je ne lui ai parlé que de ca" (this is translated by deepL but it seems wrong to me)
Or should I just say: "I told no one but him" -> "Je n'ai personne parlé que lui"
Merci.
Hi, Do you have a list of verbs that are followed by à and de? And is there a simple way to remember which is the right preposition to be used post which verb?
Bonjour,
I certainly do not know enough of French culture and language to discuss your explanation of French usage, below. However, I disagree that in English, the difference between "may I" and "can I" is that "may I" is more formal. More accurately, "can I" may be informal and in common usage, yes, but it is also often considered abrupt and somewhat impolite, and this is not only by grammar nerds (or oldies) such as I (or grammar nerds like me, to use more idiomatic speech, ha ha).
The grammatical distinctions are obvious, of course ("can" denoting capacity or ability, "may" is conditional, one is granted capacity). One hears often, when someone is ordering in a cafe or bar, "can I get a... ". To many English-speakers, this is grating and impolite. I, for one, hope that "may I have...", does not go out of idiomatic usage (though perhaps that battle is lost and I am just raving...)
Love Lawless French, by the way,
Alice
"In the case of pouvoir, note that je peux becomes irregular in the inverted form: puis-je, in order to ease pronunciation.This structure is very formal as we stated before, and is usually used to sound particularly polite or even a bit affected: the nearest English equivalent would be to use May I...?"
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