~ If you can speak French this question is for you~?

Question

I am trying to learn some French. I have learned individual words and want to string them together in a sentence. Most of the words begin with la or le (la mere, le gateu, le portable , le tennis, le television, le jour, la tete etc.) I was wondering, when you string the words together in a sentence, can you drop the la or le part for instance if you would like to say something like hi mom, do you have to say Bonjour La mere or can you just say Bonjour Mere,. Or when you call someone a cabbage head, Do you have to say Le chou La tete or can you just say chou tete?

So basically, what I'm trying to say here is when you string French words into a sentence can you drop the La or Le part? Thanks for any answers.

Answer 1

Yes you can drop the le and la in particular cases. Le and La mean "the". You can drop Le and La when you are going to say things that don't involve the word "the". However, forming sentences is not as simple as just combining the two words by dropping the "le" or "la". If you want to you can email me [e-mail] and I can help you out. I've got 7 years of french classes under my belt.

Answer 2

You can drop it sometimes. Ex: Hi Mom is Bonjour maman (another word for mother). Not Bonjour la maman. But...
I am looking for my mother is je suis regarder pour ma mere. There are different ways to say le and la (mon, ma, ton, ta, son, sa and all the plurals)
It takes some practice. I'd suggest getting some french tapes or watching some french tv and listening for that kind of stuff. Hope that helped out a bit.

Answer 3

I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than that. First of all, nouns are either masculine or feminine, so they have "le" or "la" in front of them, respectively. You just have to learn that part by heart. As to whether the definite article ("le" "la" or "les," in the plural) is there, that depends on whether you're referring to a definite or indefinite noun. A good grammar book can lay this out for you.

However, "Hi Mom," is best expressed by "Bonjour, maman!" (I assume it's you're mom.)

I wouldn't call someone a cabbage head in French. Someone who would might say, "Tête de chou."

Answer 4

language is complicated, in some cases you can drop it, in others you cant. For example, saying hello to a person, normally use a name, in your example you suggested bonjour mere.. but mere is a noun, a mother would normally be refered to as maman,(meaning mummy or mum) so you would say bonjour maman.

your other example cabbage head, well it's more awkward, it is probably more literally translated as tete de chox. because it would be head of cabbage, ie a bead full of cabbage or a head like cabbage!! as opposed to cabbage head, its complicated, but its actually easier to learn than english lol.

if you want more help i find it useful to look at the following translations site, then you can learn from that. to be honest you aren't going to get very far with just nouns! it could be useful to learn some verbs too!! lol

Answer 5

I'm not great at French but I'm learning. La and Le mean "the". So if you are saying Hello mother, it's just Bonjour mere. But if you are saying I want the television it would be Je veux le television.

At least...i think....

Answer 6

You need to conjugate ... to say hello mom ...you would say "Bonjour ma mere" which is probably too formal and translates to Good day my mother... a more relaxed way would be to say "salut maman" basically Hi Mom.

As for the cabbage thing...the term is actually "mon petit chou" my little cabbage. but cabbage head would be "tete de chou" its a french grammar thing to be reverse.

Bon chance mon ami!

Answer 7

You can't drop the le or la. For hi mom, you say Bonjour, ma mere. Ma is like le or la, giving the word masculinity or feminine qualites.

Answer 8

Well, the "le" and "la" aren't as simple as you make them out to be. A lot of times, they are not dropped, but replaced by appropriate pronouns. I don't know why you would want to call someone "La tete au chou," but the "au" - meaning "of", would definitely be needed.

Answer 9

nope, the la and le are the article (in English grammer) and makes the word either male or female. Very important when speaking.

As you get further along in the language you will learn short cuts, but that isn't one...unless your add another article in its place that is neither masculine or feminine. And, to drop the proper article is considered slang when in France. So, you will be snubbed if you aren't a native speaker.

Answer 10

"Le" and "La" are the french equivalent to the english word "The" and are used in the same way. When a term would generally not use the article "The" you do not have to use "Le" or "La." Also keep in mind that "Un" and "Une" being the equivalent to "A" apply in the same way.