Il avait traduit un dictionnaire

Il avait traduit un dictionnaire // He had translated a dictionary

Today, another delightfully silly phrase from Duolingo: Il avait traduit un dictionnaire // He had translated a dictionary (I ask you!).

I mean, ok, you can just about imagine why would anybody want to translate a dictionary, and the cat clearly had done it. And here he is, at a book signing (séance de dédicace) and everything. Well done, that cat.

Il s’est déguisé en pirate pour le Carnaval

Il s’est déguisé en pirate pour le Carnaval // He was disguised as a pirate for Carnival

Once again, “French Word of the Day” to the rescue.

Nothing to add (it is perfect as is).

Pictures of carnival @ Shutterstock.

il a débuté sa carrière

En 2017, il a débuté sa carrière dans ce blog // In 2017, he began his career in this blog

We are nearly at the end of the academic year - tomorrow is the last lesson.

We continue working with  Passé composé (a débuté in the sentence above) but you can tell that the year is almost gone by the number of people who attend. Basically, the class is almost gone also.

I really need to work on the lights. I will do it on my winter break.

Hier le chat s’est reposé. Aujourd’hui le chat se repose

Hier, le chat a reposé. Aujourd’hui, le chat repose.* //
Yesterday, the cat rested. Today, the cat is resting.

Today we briefly touched on Passé Composé, a verbal tense similar to present perfect in English, although is doesn’t always translate into it. Two auxiliary verbs can be used — avoir and être (to have and to be). To have, avoir, is used in most cases. (Counterintuitively, we started with The Other One, être, as in “hier, ils sont allé”, “yesterday they went”).

I am not sure if Passé Composé sounds natural in this little description of the cat’s daily routine. But I wanted to use it anyway.

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* UPD: a correction just arrived from Twitter (AnessNuts) — it must be “hier le chat s’est reposé , aujourd’hui le chat se repose” — i.e. it is a reflexive verb and these take être as an auxiliary. By a strange coincidence this was exactly what we talked about in class today.

Pictures related to cats and sleep @ Shutterstock.