#crack8541
warped night
whats the difference between parles and parler? is it the formality? the gender?
you see, when you want to ask for someone to speak more slowly, you say pouvez-vous parles plus lentement
grizzled nova
Same kind of difference as "to be" vs "am" vs "is"
Parles is for when you're conjugating for "tu" only, "parler" is the infinitive
"Pouvez-vous parles" isn't correct, you can't conjugate more than one verb in a row
While it's not a 1:1 translation, it sounds as odd, if not odder than "can you speaks slower"
warped night
well thats weird, i got this info from frenchpod 101
grizzled nova
Can you show?
sour drift
The concern here shouldn't be « parler » but « pouvez »
« parler » here is the infinitive or the unconjugated form of the verb
You only conjugate once in a clause
Formality is indicated (in large part) by the use of tu or vous; you use tu for informal situations and vous for formal situations
;tu
compact turretBOT
sour drift
Humorous but actually accurate
warped night
The concern here shouldn't be « parler » but « pouvez »
but wait, isnt pouvez an entirely different word that means something like ´can´ as in ´can you´?
sour drift
but wait, isnt pouvez an entirely different word that means something like ´can´...
Yeah but you asked about formality, didn't you?
warped night
i asked about the difference between parler and parles and suspected formality, yes
just making sure that im not crazy
in order to learn a language well, you need to understand it
sour drift
parler is the infinitive form
when it comes into contact with the pronoun tu, it becomes parles
for vous, it's parlez
The formality part concerns the pronoun and its corresponding verb form
so what makes « Pouvez-vous parler plus lentement » formal is not « parler », it's « pouvez-vous »
if I say « Peux-tu parler plus plus lentement » that'll be informal because I used tu (and thus its corresponding verb form peux from the infinitive pouvoir) instead of vous and its verb form pouvez
« parler » doesn't factor into this at all because it'll be in the infinitive anyway
Would you rather say, 'He likes to drink coffee' or 'He likes drinks coffee'? Same principle
warped night
i see
just one more thing
if pouvez vous parler plus lentement isnt the correct way to say ´could you speak more slowly´, what is?
sour drift
Well
« Pourriez-vous parler plus lentement ? » would be the literal translation but « Pouvez-vous parler plus lentement ? » is valid as well. It's just that in English we tend to use the past modal form of 'can' and 'will' (could and would respectively) to show respect and deference when making requests but French is fine with it in the simple present
warped night
i see. thank you bertie!
grizzled nova
if pouvez vous parler plus lentement isnt the correct way to say ´could you spea...
Just to be clear, I said that "parles" was not correct in that sentence, which is how you had written it. With "parler" is fine
warped night
My god, I've never seen a single letter cause this much chaos in my life