Using le with days of the week + weekend

Hi Gloria, 

Take a look at this discussion posted later on, sorry missed yours....

https://kwiziq.learnfrenchwithalexa.com/questions/view/in-both-cases-when-mentioning-the-day-of-the-week-they-used-an-article-but-the-lesson-states-that-wh

 

Bonjour Kez !

The issue in these two cases is whether "Monday/Fridays" are meant to refer to one single occurrence or in general.

When you say "Monday is my favourite day", you don't mean one specific Monday, but Mondays in general : in English, you could also say: "Mondays are my favourite".
It's that encompassing meaning which justifies the use of "le".

I hope that's helpful!
Bonne journée !

I wonder about this too. There's a famous song: Je hais les dimanches.

Hi David and Alan,

Although in some cases you can say 'les + jour de la semaine', it will be in cases like the ones you mention, to like, to hate. If you use préférer, it will be for instance, 

Je préfère le jeudi au lundi. (I prefer Thursdays to Mondays.)

The point of the lesson was to avoid classic mistakes for On + Day of the week and to encourage students to use, le mercredi, le weekend etc...

To use both in the lesson would serve to confuse rather than to help.

You will find exceptions to all the rules you encounter and this is one of them.

Hope this helps!

Ok, so it would be inappropriate to chnage the lesson. But why was I marked wrong if the answer is valid French?

Because that wasn't the point of the lesson. 

-- Chris. 

But the question is encountered outside the lesson - perhaps weeks later. At this stage the lesson is not the focus - the goal is to use French correctly.

Bonjour à tous !

From my native point of view, using les is not really correct when making a general statement. 
@David, following your remark on Google occurrences (note that the ratio was 1 to 4 in favour of le), I had a look at cases with les, and they're mostly different contexts such as:

- using either "ces mercredis-là",
complements "les mercredis où je reste à la maison",
or possessive adjectives "nos mercredis à la plage".
In such cases, you will use the plural as you're referring to a certain number of Wednesdays but not *all* of them in a general manner.

As for the song, I listened to it and apart from the title phrase, she actually uses the singular in the lyrics "le dimanche", confirming my impression of poetic license here :)

I hope that's helpful!
À bientôt !

Hi Rene - yes, we removed the micro kwizzes on lesson pages as they were not functioning correctly and causing other issues. We are aware that they were popular though and we're looking at getting them, or something similar, working again. You can add topics to you notebook(s) and kwiz against that/those in the meantime if you want to practise a single topic at a time (just put one or more lessons in the notebook using the add buttons and click test from your notebook). Every time you test against a notebook list you'll be given new questions from the available set, prioritised correctly by KwizBot based on what he knows about your knowledge.

Hey Gruff, thanks for the reply. I usually load up my notebooks with many lessons, but to test on one or two pressing topics, I will create a "thinNotebook". I can then put 1 or 2 lessons there. Thanks for the workaround. P. S. I love the multi-notebook capability of the premium subscription. Bonne journée ! Rene

Yes, generally you need the article, as in:

J'ai passé la semaine dernière en vacances.

-- Chris (not a native speaker).

Bonjour Stuart !

Yes you will need to use "la".

Here's the link to our related lesson:
https://kwiziq.learnfrenchwithalexa.com/revision/grammar/how-to-express-next-last-with-durations-prochain-dernier

Bonne journée !

In a word, no. Anytime the day and date is spelled out, like in your example, the «le» is required. This is covered in the lesson above using the day and date section. Bonne chance.

one other thing of note, in my French class, the prof always starts out by asking the date and it is written on the chalkboard thusly, Dimanche, le 23 juillet 2017

Oh yeah! I forgot about the day and date section! And thanks for the note about your French teacher. That helps to lock it in my memory.

Pas de problème! Je suis très ravi que j'ai pu vous aider. Bonne chance dans vos études en Français. Ron

Merci beaucoup Ron! On second thought, shouldn't your teacher have written le dimanche 23 juillet 2017?

Bonjour, Here is an example from another site. Writing the Date in French Writing the date out in French is different to the North American system. In French, you must reverse the month and day. This can be a bit confusing at first for Americans but should not cause any confusion for people from the UK as they use the same system. Here are some useful examples: le 5 juin 2012 5/6/2012 June 5, 2012 6/5/2012 le 25 décembre 2012 25/12/2012 December 25, 2012 12/25/2012 le 3 november 2012 11/03/2012 November 3, 2012 03/11/2012 and yet another example from a different site: Write and pronounce the date, including the day of the week. This is identical to writing the date, with the day of the week added to the front of the phrase. Here's an example: English: Wednesday, the 5th of June French (written): mercredi, le 5 juin 2001 (formal) French (written): mercredi 5 juin 2001 (normal) French (spoken): mercredi cinq juin deux mille un French (spoken): le mercredi cinq juin deux mille un (eventually if you want to describe a precise day)

Wow! Thank you for your thorough reply! Yes, I've always understood the day, date, month, year order; now I will REally have the 'le with days of the week' ingrained in my brain! Again, thank you for your time, and soon I will be writing these in French! Merci beaucoup!

Just remember that we did not learn our mother tongue in a short period of time and like that, French will take time to become truly proficient. Bonne chance.

I have this same question .

No reply?

Bonjour Jason ! "To have plans" is actually quite a tricky expression to translate. However, you are correct on your usage of "mercredi" to say "on Wednesday": the position in the sentence is irrelevant here. To express "I have plans on Wednesday", meaning "I have things planned for that day.", in French you could say: "J'ai quelque chose de prévu mercredi." (I have something planned) or "J'ai des choses de prévu mercredi." (I have planS) I hope that's helpful! À bientôt !