Re: More natural language questions

>     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