| From: | Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...> |
|---|---|
| Date: | Wednesday, February 18, 2004, 20:38 |
Quite OK. The use of the verb 'to have' for such cases is much less common in French than in English. We often use different verbs (accents dropped) : - Have a cigar ! = Prenez un cigare (lit. 'Take a cigar') - I had a cup of tea = J'ai pris une tasse de the (not: J'ai eu une tasse de the) - I had a wonderful evening = J'ai passe une soiree merveilleuse (but: on n'a pas eu un bel ete = we had not a really nice summer) - We had sex = Nous avons fait l'amour (definitely not: nous avons eu du sexe !) This has nothing to do with 'en train de', which is just a way to express the imperfective. The exact equivalent of the English 'I am eating' would be 'Je suis mangeant', but as it happens, we just don't use such a form, what seems to puzzle the English-speakers rather much. It's sometimes possible to use the present participle (without 'en') after the verb '(s'en) aller' (je vais chantant = I go singing), but that looks old-fashioned and is rather used in poetry or songs : 'Les gens s'en vont disant / Mon Dieu les pauvres noces', literally 'People go saying / My God what a poor wedding' 'Etre en train de' can sometimes be translated by 'to be busy -ing', but that looks difficult for passive concepts: 'je suis en train de perdre la partie' = I'm on the way to lose the game (?? I'm busy losing the game) --- michael poxon <m.poxon@...> wrote:> "En train de..." isn't really an idiom, just a > grammatical feature of French. You could equate this > to "I'm in the process of ...ing" in English, but > usually it's just used in French to stress that an > action is (or was) currently ongoing. For "I had a > nice summer" I'd say "J'ai passé un bon été." though > doubtless the native francophones on the list could > put us both right here! > Mike > ---- > Altho French has idioms like <en train de> which > English doesn't have, I wonder if it has the English > idiom in 'I had a nice summer!'. In a thing for > school, I've translated it as <J'ai eu un été > plaisant !>, but I'm not sure if it's correct. > Should it be <L'été passé a été plaisant !>, maybe? > > > --- > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system > (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.590 / Virus Database: 373 - Release > Date: 16/02/04 >===== Philippe Caquant "Le langage est source de malentendus." (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools