He started listing all the fish . .

Question

Is there anything wrong with «il commençait à lister tous les poissons» for translation of 'he started listing all the fish' or 'he started to list all the fish'? It seems a more direct translation and grammatically correct, (I think).

Aurélie Drouard · Accepted Answer

Bonjour Chris !
Thank you very much for these useful suggestions :)Indeed, I agree with both, and have now updated the exercise accordingly.
Merci encore et bonne journée !

Chris Wirt · Answer

A few remarks to that writing exercise:"After we had set up our foldable stools...": at this time we would need to know how the sentence continues to decide between "après..." or "après que...". A HINT is needed at this point."At the end of the day...": without additional information we don't know whether to translate this phrase literally or figuratively. I suggest to rephrase the English to "in the end".

Aurélie Drouard · Answer

Bonjour Maarten !Indeed, "lister" is also acceptable here (I did believe it was an "anglicisme" [again], but it is in the French dictionary!), and thanks to you, has now been added to the exercise :)Merci et bonne journée !

Maarten Kamp · Answer

I agree with Chris and am glad the 2 have been incorporated. On the other hand, I have to say that the time I spent understanding why these 2 phrases had different primary responses to those I used, was not wasted. I also spent some time on 'ripples' as there are so many words that can be used here! 'Vaguelettes' is my favourite - a synonym for 'rides' according to Robert.