"Can I" and "may I" in EnglishBonjour,
I certainly do not know enough of French culture and language to discuss your explanation of French usage, below. However, I disagree that in English, the difference between "may I" and "can I" is that "may I" is more formal. More accurately, "can I" may be informal and in common usage, yes, but it is also often considered abrupt and somewhat impolite, and this is not only by grammar nerds (or oldies) such as I (or grammar nerds like me, to use more idiomatic speech, ha ha).
The grammatical distinctions are obvious, of course ("can" denoting capacity or ability, "may" is conditional, one is granted capacity). One hears often, when someone is ordering in a cafe or bar, "can I get a... ". To many English-speakers, this is grating and impolite. I, for one, hope that "may I have...", does not go out of idiomatic usage (though perhaps that battle is lost and I am just raving...)
Love Lawless French, by the way,
Alice
"In the case of pouvoir, note that je peux becomes irregular in the inverted form: puis-je, in order to ease pronunciation.
This structure is very formal as we stated before, and is usually used to sound particularly polite or even a bit affected: the nearest English equivalent would be to use May I...?"
Est-ce
'sur le plancher' remplace 'sur le sol / par terre' ?
plancher ça veut dire floor????
Merci
Were they under-cooked? Is this referring literally to nuts/walnuts as part of the meal - or is it a part of the scallop, or a reference to the scallop?
Why we use "va" instead of "vas"? I thought it was "vas" since they communicate with "Tu".
So while you can’t say ‘J’ai des autres chaussures’ , can you say ‘j’ai besoin des autres chaussures?’ More important, how would you say ‘I have some of the other shoes?’ How is that not ‘des autres chaussures’?
Est-ce que le verbe gambader utilise l'objet indirecte? (qui lui gambadait) Merci
Where has the link to this lesson gone for above mentioned special cases of past participle agreeing with the object when using avoir? I would like to see this lesson,it is not popping up in my feed as the question is only testing Quelles (A2)..
Thanks, Danielle
Bonjour,
I certainly do not know enough of French culture and language to discuss your explanation of French usage, below. However, I disagree that in English, the difference between "may I" and "can I" is that "may I" is more formal. More accurately, "can I" may be informal and in common usage, yes, but it is also often considered abrupt and somewhat impolite, and this is not only by grammar nerds (or oldies) such as I (or grammar nerds like me, to use more idiomatic speech, ha ha).
The grammatical distinctions are obvious, of course ("can" denoting capacity or ability, "may" is conditional, one is granted capacity). One hears often, when someone is ordering in a cafe or bar, "can I get a... ". To many English-speakers, this is grating and impolite. I, for one, hope that "may I have...", does not go out of idiomatic usage (though perhaps that battle is lost and I am just raving...)
Love Lawless French, by the way,
Alice
"In the case of pouvoir, note that je peux becomes irregular in the inverted form: puis-je, in order to ease pronunciation.This structure is very formal as we stated before, and is usually used to sound particularly polite or even a bit affected: the nearest English equivalent would be to use May I...?"
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