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Re: More natural language questions

From:Douglas Koller, Latin & French <latinfrench@...>
Date:Monday, July 23, 2001, 2:16
> I'm having some translation problems with French and German. First, >German: > > When you say "a pair of socks" and "a lot of socks", my girlfriend >(minoring in German) said you say "ein Paar Socken" and "eine Menge Socken". >I thought you'd have to insert "der" in between there to get that "of", but >she says it's idiomatic. Is this true?
I didn't read anyone else addressing this, so: Yes, though I'd say it's bona fide German rather than "idiomatic". This is how German handles partitives. "Ein Glas Wein", "a glass of wine"; "ein Pfund Kuche", "a pound of cake", etc. No genitive here.
> Now, French:
Christophe tackled this one. Kou