Lou-E (corrigez-moi svp!)

[vast rampart]

Please be patient

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[reef glacier]

No.

Est-ce que nous dansons - Are we dancing?

This is not like "Let's dance" which is "Dansons"

To create "Shall we dance" we need, devoir (to should), "Devons-nouns dancer?" (Should-we dance)

[edgy jay]

Or you can invert the subject and verb:

Danserons-nous ?
Will we dance?

[reef glacier]

By this you are using futur

Just to let you know :)

[onyx spear]

I was wondering why I didn't recognise danserons - haven't looked at the future tense yet. Thanks for the info!

[robust jay]

I agree with everything you said except the shall we dance : if I understand correctly shall has more of an invitation connotation whereas devons does not. It translates more to "should we dance"

[reef glacier]

yes, but the futur is relatively easy to contruct.

hopefully our responses helped

[onyx spear]

So how would you formulate that question?

[reef glacier]

it is the same construction, again english ≠ french, so we would use a different approach to translating

even if it is shall, we would use should, they are technically interchangable

[onyx spear]

Gotcha. So there is no real way to make that distinction in French, but it doesn't matter because the invitation would be understood

[reef glacier]

yeah.

[high fog]

i think what they meant here was that "devons-nous dancer ?" isn't an appropriate translation for "shall we dance", indeed "shall we-" in this setting has a meaning of invitation (i think), not of need/obligation (in that case the English phrase would be "must we/should we dance?")
i would translate "shall we dance?" as "ça vous dirait de danser ?" (=would you be interested in dancing?) or "on danse ?" for a less formal version

[robust jay]

exactly what I meant

[onyx spear]

I've heard that last one from that 'Alors on danse' song 😄 out of interest, why is it not 'on dansons?'

[reef glacier]

on follows il/elle conjugation

[edgy jay]

He/she/one -> Il/elle/on.

Third person singular.

[reef glacier]

he/she/we(informal, indirect)

[onyx spear]

Ooops I've been conjugating that one wrong then. Nice, good to know.

[reef glacier]

as nous there is a specified group of people.

mostly

[robust jay]

alors lowkey means "so", in this song Stromae is basically saying "And so we dance"