#is23lame

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

kind pawnBOT
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Please be patient

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timber maple
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It means they "know how to"

signal marsh
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i think that normally when you say that you know how to do a certain thing, you'd use savoir instead of pouvoir

timber maple
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Yeah, pouvoir is more about your physical ability to do it

woeful stone
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Yeah but in English they used 'can' which is related to the physical ability not the knowledge

timber maple
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"Je sais attraper la balle d'une seule main mais je peux pas là"
"I can catch the ball with one hand but not right now/I can't right now"

woeful stone
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Shouldn't it be translated to:

I know how to catch the ball with one hand but I can't right now.

timber maple
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That gives different vibes in english

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Same meaning though

woeful stone
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Yeah it does, doesn't it do the same in french?

timber maple
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It's far from 1:1

woeful stone
timber maple
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Also, in Belgium, you can straight up replace pouvoir with "savoir" in any context before a verb essentially

woeful stone
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So in french savoir and pouvoir are interchangeable ?

timber maple
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Even when it refers specifically to your ability to do something in that moment

timber maple
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They definitely can be depending on context and region, but they are far from perfectly interchangeable

woeful stone
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But savoir can mean "can"

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Right?

timber maple
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More like English can use "can" to refer to someone's knowledge of how to do something

woeful stone
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And french can use savoir to refer to the ability of doing something?

timber maple
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That's its typical meaning so yes

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Wait

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Ability?

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In what sense

woeful stone
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Yeah, wasn't it just that way in the previous sentence?

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Je sais attraper la balle

I can catch the ball

timber maple
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Savoir there is the knowledge of how to do so

woeful stone
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Really?

timber maple
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See:
Je sais faire du vélo
I can ride a bike

woeful stone
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That should be translated to

I know how to ride a bike

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Like knowing and being able to do something, are different

timber maple
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But anglos are not typically going to bother saying "know how to" every time when they can just say "can"

woeful stone
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That's true

timber maple
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If you NEED to differentiate you can, but translations don't and honestly shouldn't always be the most literal translation when a native speaker of the language just wouldn't naturally use that translation most of the time

summer vigil
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hold up, why is it just "je sais attraper" and not "je sais comment attraper"

timber maple
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"je sais comment attraper" exists but has a different meaning - it means you know "how" to grab something for a specific purpose (I know the way in which I should catch the ball), rather than just functionally knowing how to catch the ball at all

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Je sais manger la pizza => I know how to eat the pizza - I know how to make the pizza eaten by me
Je sais comment manger la pizza => I know how to eat the pizza - I know the way in which I should eat the pizza (to eat it the fastest, to get the best experience, whatever the context may be)

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It implies using a specific technique, the "comment" of how you would perform the action

summer vigil