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1 Towns and cities
Occasionally the gender of a town is clear because the name includes the definite article, e.g. Le Havre or La Rochelle. In most other cases, there is some hesitation, and it is always safer to avoid the problem by using la ville de:Toulouse is beautiful= la ville de Toulouse est belleIn, to and from somewhereFor in and to with the name of a town, use à in French ; if the French name includes the definite article, à will become au, à la, à l’ or aux:to live in Toulouse= vivre à Toulouseto go to Toulouse= aller à Toulouseto live in Le Havre= vivre au Havreto go to Le Havre= aller au Havreto live in La Rochelle= vivre à La Rochelleto go to La Rochelle= aller à La Rochelleto live in Les Arcs= vivre aux Arcsto go to Les Arcs= aller aux ArcsSimilarly, from is de, becoming du, de la, de l’ or des when it combines with the definite article in town names:to come from Toulouse= venir de Toulouseto come from Le Havre= venir du Havreto come from La Rochelle= venir de La Rochelleto come from Les Arcs= venir des ArcsBelonging to a town or cityEnglish sometimes has specific words for people of a certain city or town, such as Londoners, New Yorkers or Parisians, but mostly we talk of the people of Leeds or the inhabitants of San Francisco. On the other hand, most towns in French-speaking countries have a corresponding adjective and noun, and a list of the best-known of these is given at the end of this note.The noun forms, spelt with a capital letter, mean a person from X:the inhabitants of Bordeaux= les Bordelais mplthe people of Strasbourg= les Strasbourgeois mplThe adjective forms, spelt with a small letter, are often used where in English the town name is used as an adjective:Paris shops= les magasins parisiensHowever, some of these French words are fairly rare, and it is always safe to say les habitants de X, or, for the adjective, simply de X. Here are examples of this, using some of the nouns that commonly combine with the names of towns:a Bordeaux accent= un accent de BordeauxToulouse airport= l’aéroport de Toulousethe La Rochelle area= la région de La RochelleLimoges buses= les autobus de Limogesthe Le Havre City Council= le conseil municipal du HavreLille representatives= les représentants de LilleLes Arcs restaurants= les restaurants des Arcsthe Geneva road= la route de GenèveBrussels streets= les rues de Bruxellesthe Angers team= l’équipe d’Angersthe Avignon train= le train d’Avignonbut noteOrleans traffic= la circulation à OrléansNames of cities and towns in French-speaking countries and their adjectivesRemember that when these adjectives are used as nouns, meaning a person from X or the people of X, they are spelt with capital letters.Aix-en-Provence = aixois(e)Alger = algérois(e)Angers = angevin(e)Arles = arlésien(ne)Auxerre = auxerrois(e)Avignon = avignonnais(e)Bastia = bastiais(e)Bayonne = bayonnais(e)Belfort = belfortain(e)Berne = bernois(e)Besançon = bisontin(e)Béziers = biterrois(e)Biarritz = biarrot(e)Bordeaux = bordelais(e)Boulogne-sur-Mer = boulonnais(e)Bourges = berruyer(-ère)Brest = brestois(e)Bruges = brugeois(e)Bruxelles = bruxellois(e)Calais = calaisien(ne)Cannes = cannais(e)Carcassonne = carcassonnais(e)Chambéry = chambérien(ne)Chamonix = chamoniard(e)Clermont-Ferrand = clermontois(e)Die = diois(e)Dieppe = dieppois(e)Dijon = dijonnais(e)Dunkerque = dunkerquois(e)Fontainebleau = bellifontain(e)Gap = gapençais(e)Genève = genevois(e)Grenoble = grenoblois(e)Havre, Le = havrais(e)Lens = lensois(e)Liège = liégeois(e)Lille = lillois(e)Lourdes = lourdais(e)Luxembourg = luxembourgeois(e)Lyon = lyonnais(e)Mâcon = mâconnais(e)Marseille = marseillais(e) or phocéen(ne)Metz = messin(e)Modane = modanais(e)Montpellier = montpelliérain(e)Montréal = montréalais(e)Moulins = moulinois(e)Mulhouse = mulhousien(ne)Nancy = nancéien(ne)Nantes = nantais(e)Narbonne = narbonnais(e)Nevers = nivernais(e)Nice = niçois(e)Nîmes = nîmois(e)Orléans = orléanais(e)Paris = parisien(ne)Pau = palois(e)Périgueux = périgourdin(e)Perpignan = perpignanais(e)Poitiers = poitevin(e)Pont-à-Mousson = mussipontain(e)Québec = québécois(e)Reims = rémois(e)Rennes = rennais(e)Roanne = roannais(e)Rouen = rouennais(e)Saint-Étienne = stéphanois(e)Saint-Malo = malouin(e)Saint-Tropez = tropézien(ne)Sancerre = sancerrois(e)Sète = sétois(e)Sochaux = sochalien(ne)Strasbourg = strasbourgeois(e)Tarascon = tarasconnais(e)Tarbes = tarbais(e)Toulon = toulonnais(e)Toulouse = toulousain(e)Tours = tourangeau(-elle)Tunis = tunisois(e)Valence = valentinois(e)Valenciennes = valenciennois(e)Versailles = versaillais(e)Vichy = vichyssois(e) -
2 to
to [tu:, tə]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. preposition2. adverb3. compounds━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. preposition━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When to is the second element in a phrasal verb, eg apply to, set to, look up the verb. When to is part of a set combination, eg nice to, of help to, look up the adjective or noun.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━a. (direction, movement) à━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► to it ( = there) y• I liked the exhibition, I went to it twice j'ai aimé l'exposition, j'y suis allé deux foisb. ( = towards) versc. (home, workplace) chez► to + feminine country/area en• to England/France en Angleterre/France• to Brittany/Provence en Bretagne/Provence• to Sicily/Crete en Sicile/Crète• to Louisiana/Virginia en Louisiane/Virginie━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► en is also used with masculine countries beginning with a vowel.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• to Iran/Israel en Iran/Israël► to + masculine country/area au• to Japan/Kuwait au Japon/Koweït• to the Sahara/Kashmir au Sahara/Cachemire► to + plural country/group of islands aux• to the United States/the West Indies aux États-Unis/Antilles► to + town/island without article à• to London/Lyons à Londres/Lyon• to Cuba/Malta à Cuba/Malte• is this the road to Newcastle? est-ce que c'est la route de Newcastle ?• it is 90km to Paris ( = from here to) nous sommes à 90 km de Paris ; ( = from there to) c'est à 90 km de Paris• planes to Heathrow les vols mpl à destination de Heathrow► to + masculine state/region/county dans• to Texas/Ontario dans le Texas/l'Ontario• to Sussex/Yorkshire dans le Sussex/le Yorkshire━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► dans is also used with many départements.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• to the Drôme/the Var dans la Drôme/le Vare. ( = up to) jusqu'àf. ► to + person (indirect object) à━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When a relative clause ends with to, a different word order is required in French.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When translating to + pronoun, look up the pronoun. The translation depends on whether it is stressed or unstressed.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━h. (in ratios) he got a big majority (twenty votes to seven) il a été élu à une large majorité (vingt voix contre sept)i. ( = concerning) that's all there is to it ( = it's easy) ce n'est pas plus difficile que ça• you're not going, and that's all there is to it ( = that's definite) tu n'iras pas, un point c'est toutj. ( = of) de━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► A preposition may be required with the French infinitive, depending on what precedes it: look up the verb or adjective.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The French verb may take a clause, rather than the infinitive.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• well, to sum up... alors, pour résumer...• we are writing to inform you... nous vous écrivons pour vous informer que...━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► to is not translated when it stands for the infinitive.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• he'd like me to come, but I don't want to il voudrait que je vienne mais je ne veux pas• yes, I'd love to oui, volontiers2. adverb( = shut) to push the door to pousser la porte3. compounds(plural to-dos)• he made a great to-do about lending me the car il a fait toute une histoire pour me prêter la voiture ► to-ing and fro-ing noun allées et venues fpl* * *1. [tə], devant une voyelle [tʊ, tuː], emphatique [tuː]1) ( expressing purpose) pour2) ( linking consecutive acts)he looked up to see... — en levant les yeux, il a vu...
3) ( after superlatives) àthe youngest to do — le or la plus jeune à faire
‘did you go?’ - ‘no I promised not to’ — ‘tu y es allé?’ - ‘non j'avais promis de ne pas le faire’
‘are you staying? ’ - ‘I want to but...’ — ‘tu restes?’ - ‘j'aimerais bien mais...’
it is difficult to do something — il est difficile de faire quelque chose; ( expressing wish)
2.oh to be able to stay in bed! — hum ô pouvoir rester au lit!
1) ( in direction of) à [shops, school]; ( with purpose of visiting) chez [doctor's, dentist's]; ( towards) vers2) ( up to) jusqu'àto the end/this day — jusqu'à la fin/ce jour
3) ( in telling time)4) ( introducing direct or indirect object) [give, offer] àto me/my daughter it's just a minor problem — pour moi/ma fille ce n'est qu'un problème mineur
5) (in toasts, dedications) àto prosperity — à la prospérité; ( on tombstone)
6) ( in accordance with)7) (in relationships, comparisons)8) ( showing accuracy)9) ( showing reason)10) ( belonging to) depersonal assistant to the director — assistant/-e m/f du directeur
11) ( on to) [tied] à; [pinned] à [noticeboard etc]; sur [lapel, dress]12) ( showing reaction) à3. [tuː]to his surprise/dismay — à sa grande surprise/consternation
••that's all there is to it — ( it's easy) c'est aussi simple que ça; ( not for further discussion) un point c'est tout
what a to-do! — (colloq) quelle histoire! (colloq)
what's it to you? — (colloq) qu'est-ce que ça peut te faire?
См. также в других словарях:
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