soobbinn

[azure kiln]

Please be patient

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[halcyon axle]

Au is a contraction of à + le
Je vais a le cinéma ❌
Je vais au cinéma ✅

Au is a required contraction

[teal badger]

and isnt there an exception for the 4 seasons?

Au printemps

im not sure

[thorn hornet]

how do you know which words use au

waitt is it only used for masculine words

[teal badger]

if its a masculin word we use ''au'' like le cine but if its feminin like la station we use "a la"

[thorn hornet]

okay

[teal badger]

exactly

[thorn hornet]

but a la maison

how do u remember masc or fem of the word

[teal badger]

okay so some words right

if there is an e at the end, its usually feminin but masculin words also has e at the end

u just have to remember all the genders of the words

i guess

[thorn hornet]

i see

[teal badger]

yep

im new to french as well so maybe im wrong

[thorn hornet]

also

when to use en or dans

[teal badger]

so for dans it means "inside"
for example: je parle anglais dans la maison.
its to signify that ur doing something inside
for en it means "in" like
for example: j'habite en France.

[thorn hornet]

ohh

[teal badger]

usually i get confused as well because it has the same meaning but time to time you'll realised its different

sorry for the bad explanation

[thorn hornet]

no thank u 🙏

i never thought of it as inside

[teal badger]

you'll get it sooner

[thorn hornet]

dans mon sac

is that right

[teal badger]

yes

[thorn hornet]

how do u say at

at night

[teal badger]

la nuit

[thorn hornet]

but la isnt it the

[teal badger]

En nuit

[snow oriole]

pendant la nuit

[thorn hornet]

during the night

[snow oriole]

or just la nuit, really depends on the context and sentence

[teal badger]

yeah

thats a helper im not sure

[thorn hornet]

soo you translate it directly as the night but you say it as at night

[snow oriole]

you learn it with the noun

[snow oriole]

shrug, prepositions especially are quite random between languages so "literal" translations are often really biased and don't reflect the actual words themselves

[thorn hornet]

yeah true

[snow oriole]

"de" is the most complicated one as the partitive fucks it up

"à" and "en" are probably next

since they have a lot of specific usages that just dont translate

[thorn hornet]

wait so a la has two meanings

je suis a la maison

i have another q

how do you translate here the highlighted part
I watch television before going to bed.

[snow oriole]

https://www.wordreference.com/fren/à

[snow oriole]

Avant d'aller

[thorn hornet]

whats the meaning of de

[snow oriole]

https://www.wordreference.com/fren/de

It's just a preposition here

This is the one from the list here

[thorn hornet]

oh thx

[snow oriole]

The « - » being the translation for this case

Aka nothing

[thorn hornet]

how do you say "what time is it"

[halcyon axle]

Il est quelle heure?

[thorn hornet]

i thought it starts with qu'est-ce que

[halcyon axle]

That only works for questions with "que"

Que fais-tu? (Most formal)
Tu fais quoi? (Que at the end of a phrase become quoi)
--- Qu'est-ce-que tu fais?
These all mean the same thing

The statement I said above used "which" - "quel/le"

Il est quelle heure?
Quelle heure est-il?

I think those are the only two ways to ask that question with "quel"

[thorn hornet]

doesnt quelle mean "what" aswell

[halcyon axle]

It does but only when choosing between stuff like

What is your favorite place?
Quel est ton endroit préféré?

Que fais-tu? is just asking what you are doing, you aren't choosing between anything.

[thorn hornet]

so quelle is more specific and quest ce que is more general?

[snow oriole]

quel is like within a certain confine, there's (theoretically) a limited number of options

[thorn hornet]

oh i see

[halcyon axle]

They are all masculine the seasons but "au printemps" used au because it printemps starts with a constant. The rest of the seasons start with a vowel so "en" sounds better with them.