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1 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?
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2 Usage note : be
I am tired= je suis fatiguéCaroline is French= Caroline est françaisethe children are in the garden= les enfants sont dans le jardinIt functions in very much the same way as to be does in English and it is safe to assume it will work as a translation in the great majority of cases.Note, however, that when you are specifying a person’s profession or trade, a/an is not translated:she’s a doctor= elle est médecinClaudie is still a student= Claudie est toujours étudianteThis is true of any noun used in apposition when the subject is a person:he’s a widower= il est veufButLyons is a beautiful city= Lyon est une belle villeFor more information or expressions involving professions and trades consult the usage note Shops, Trades and Professions.For the conjugation of the verb être see the French verb tables.Grammatical functionsThe passiveêtre is used to form the passive in French just as to be is used in English. Note, however, that the past participle agrees in gender and number with the subject:the rabbit was killed by a fox= le lapin a été tué par un renardthe window had been broken= la fenêtre avait été casséetheir books will be sold= leurs livres seront vendusour doors have been repainted red= nos portes ont été repeintes en rougeIn spoken language, French native speakers find the passive cumbersome and will avoid it where possible by using the impersonal on where a person or people are clearly involved : on a repeint nos portes en rouge.Progressive tensesIn French the idea of something happening over a period of time cannot be expressed using the verb être in the way that to be is used as an auxiliary verb in English.The presentFrench uses simply the present tense where English uses the progressive form with to be:I am working= je travailleBen is reading a book= Ben lit un livreIn order to accentuate duration être en train de is used: je suis en train de travailler ; Ben est en train de lire un livre.The futureFrench also uses the present tense where English uses the progressive form with to be:we are going to London tomorrow= nous allons à Londres demainI’m (just) coming!= j’arrive!I’m (just) going!= j’y vais!The pastTo express the distinction between she read a newspaper and she was reading a newspaper French uses the perfect and the imperfect tenses: elle a lu un journal/elle lisait un journal:he wrote to his mother= il a écrit à sa mèrehe was writing to his mother= il écrivait à sa mèreHowever, in order to accentuate the notion of describing an activity which went on over a period of time, the phrase être en train de (= to be in the process of) is often used:‘what was he doing when you arrived?’‘he was cooking the dinner’= ‘qu’est-ce qu’il faisait quand tu es arrivé?’ ‘il était en train de préparer le dîner’she was just finishing her essay when …= elle était juste en train de finir sa dissertation quand …The compound pastCompound past tenses in the progressive form in English are generally translated by the imperfect in French:I’ve been looking for you= je te cherchaisFor progressive forms + for and since (I’ve been waiting for an hour, I had been waiting for an hour, I’ve been waiting since Monday etc.) see the entries for and since.ObligationWhen to be is used as an auxiliary verb with another verb in the infinitive ( to be to do) expressing obligation, a fixed arrangement or destiny, devoir is used:she’s to do it at once= elle doit le faire tout de suitewhat am I to do?= qu’est-ce que je dois faire?he was to arrive last Monday= il devait arriver lundi derniershe was never to see him again= elle ne devait plus le revoir.In tag questionsFrench has no direct equivalent of tag questions like isn’t he? or wasn’t it? There is a general tag question n’est-ce pas? (literally isn’t it so?) which will work in many cases:their house is lovely, isn’t it?= leur maison est très belle, n’est-ce pas?he’s a doctor, isn’t he?= il est médecin, n’est-ce pas?it was a very good meal, wasn’t it?= c’était un très bon repas, n’est-ce pas?However, n’est-ce pas can very rarely be used for positive tag questions and some other way will be found to express the extra meaning contained in the tag: par hasard ( by any chance) can be very useful as a translation:‘I can’t find my glasses’ ‘they’re not in the kitchen, are they?’= ‘je ne trouve pas mes lunettes’ ‘elles ne sont pas dans la cuisine, par hasard?’you haven’t seen Gaby, have you?= tu n’as pas vu Gaby, par hasard?In cases where an opinion is being sought, si? meaning more or less or is it? or was it? etc. can be useful:it’s not broken, is it?= ce n’est pas cassé, si?he wasn’t serious, was he?= il n’était pas sérieux, si?In many other cases the tag question is simply not translated at all and the speaker’s intonation will convey the implied question.In short answersAgain, there is no direct equivalent for short answers like yes I am, no he’s not etc. Where the answer yes is given to contradict a negative question or statement, the most useful translation is si:‘you’re not going out tonight’ ‘yes I am’= ‘tu ne sors pas ce soir’ ‘si’In reply to a standard enquiry the tag will not be translated:‘are you a doctor?’ ‘yes I am’= ‘êtes-vous médecin?’ ‘oui’‘was it raining?’ ‘yes it was’= ‘est-ce qu’il pleuvait?’ ‘oui’ProbabilityFor expressions of probability and supposition ( if I were you etc.) see the entry be.Other functionsExpressing sensations and feelingsIn expressing physical and mental sensations, the verb used in French is avoir:to be cold= avoir froidto be hot= avoir chaudI’m cold= j’ai froidto be thirsty= avoir soifto be hungry= avoir faimto be ashamed= avoir hontemy hands are cold= j’ai froid aux mainsIf, however, you are in doubt as to which verb to use in such expressions, you should consult the entry for the appropriate adjective.Discussing health and how people areIn expressions of health and polite enquiries about how people are, aller is used:how are you?= comment allez-vous?( more informally) comment vas-tu?( very informally as a greeting) ça va?are you well?= vous allez bien?how is your daughter?= comment va votre fille?my father is better today= mon père va mieux aujourd’huiDiscussing weather and temperatureIn expressions of weather and temperature faire is generally used:it’s cold= il fait froidit’s windy= il fait du ventIf in doubt, consult the appropriate adjective entry.Visiting somewhereWhen to be is used in the present perfect tense to mean go, visit etc., French will generally use the verbs venir, aller etc. rather than être:I’ve never been to Sweden= je ne suis jamais allé en Suèdehave you been to the Louvre?= est-ce que tu es déjà allé au Louvre?or est-ce que tu as déjà visité le Louvre?Paul has been to see us three times= Paul est venu nous voir trois foisNote too:has the postman been?= est-ce que le facteur est passé?The translation for an expression or idiom containing the verb to be will be found in the dictionary at the entry for another word in the expression: for to be in danger see danger, for it would be best to … see best etc.This dictionary contains usage notes on topics such as the clock, time units, age, weight measurement, days of the week, and shops, trades and professions, many of which include translations of particular uses of to be. -
3 which
which [wɪt∫]1. adjective• which card did he take? quelle carte a-t-il prise ? laquelle des cartes a-t-il prise ?• which one? lequel (or laquelle) ?b. in which case... auquel cas...• he spent a week here, during which time... il a passé une semaine ici au cours de laquelle...2. pronoun• which of these maps is the best? quelle est la meilleure de ces cartes ? laquelle de ces cartes est la meilleure ?• which of you (two) is taller? lequel de vous deux est le plus grand ? qui est le plus grand de vous deux ?• which of you owns the red car? lequel d'entre vous est le propriétaire de la voiture rouge ?b. ( = the one or ones that) (subject) celui m (or celle f or ceux mpl or celles fpl) qui ; (object) celui que• I don't mind which n'importe lequel, ça m'est égalc. ( = that) (subject) qui ; (object) que ; (after prep) lequel m (or laquelle f or lesquels mpl or lesquelles fpl)• opposite which en face duquel (or de laquelle)• he said he knew her, which is true il a dit qu'il la connaissait, ce qui est vrai• she called me "Bobby", which I don't like elle m'a appelé « Bobby », ce que je n'aime pas* * *[wɪtʃ], US [hwɪtʃ] 1.1) (also which one) lequel m, laquelle fwhich do you want, the red skirt or the blue one? — laquelle est-ce que tu veux, la jupe rouge ou la bleue?
which of the groups...? — ( referring to one) lequel des groupes...?; ( referring to several) lesquels des groupes...?
show her which you mean — montre-lui celui/celle etc que tu veux dire
2) ( relative to preceding noun) ( as subject) qui; ( as object) que; ( after prepositions) lequel/laquelle/lesquels/lesquellesthe contract which he's spoken about ou about which he's spoken — le contrat dont il a parlé
3) ( relative to preceding clause or concept) ( as subject) ce qui; ( as object) ce quewhich reminds me... — ce qui me fait penser que...
we'll be moving, before which we need to... — nous allons déménager mais avant il faut que nous...
2.he's resigned, from which we must assume that — il a démissionné, d'où on peut déduire que
1) ( interrogative) quel/quelle/quels/quelles (before n)which one of the children? — lequel or laquelle des enfants?
2) ( relative)he left the room, during which time... — il a quitté la pièce et pendant ce temps-là...
you may wish to join, in which case... — vous voulez peut-être vous inscrire, auquel cas...
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4 what
what [wɒt]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. adjective2. pronoun3. compounds━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━1. adjective• what time is it? quelle heure est-il ?• what flavours do you want? quels parfums voulez-vous ?• what subjects did you choose? quelles matières as-tu choisies ?b. ( = all the) I gave him what money I had je lui ai donné tout l'argent que j'avais• I will give you what information we have je vais vous donner toutes les informations dont nous disposonsc. (exclamations) what a nice surprise! quelle bonne surprise !• what a ridiculous suggestion! quelle suggestion ridicule !• what a nightmare! quel cauchemar !• what a nuisance! quelle barbe ! (inf)• what a lot of people! que de monde !• what lovely hair you've got! quels jolis cheveux tu as !2. pronouna. (used alone, or in emphatic position) quoi• what? I didn't get that quoi ? je n'ai pas compris• I've forgotten something -- what? j'ai oublié quelque chose -- quoi ?• he's getting married -- what! il se marie -- quoi !• what! you expect me to believe that! quoi ! et tu penses que je vais croire ça !━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► quoi is used with a preposition, if the French verb requires one.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• I've just thought of something -- what? je viens de penser à quelque chose -- à quoi ?• I've just remembered something -- what? je viens de me souvenir de quelque chose -- de quoi ?• what's happened? qu'est-ce qui s'est passé ?• what's bothering you? qu'est-ce qui te préoccupe ?• what's for dinner? qu'est-ce qu'il y a pour dîner ?• what is his address? quelle est son adresse ?• what's the French for "pen"? comment dit-on « pen » en français ?• what is this called? comment ça s'appelle ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When asking for a definition or explanation, c'est quoi is often used in spoken French.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• what are capers? c'est quoi, les câpres ?• what's that noise? c'est quoi, ce bruit ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The object pronoun que is more formal than qu'est-ce que and requires inversion of verb and pronoun.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• what did you do? qu'avez-vous fait ?• what can we do? qu'est-ce qu'on peut faire ? que peut-on faire ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► The French preposition cannot be separated from the pronoun.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━• what does he owe his success to? à quoi doit-il son succès ?• what were you talking about? de quoi parliez-vous ?• what's the best time to call? quel est le meilleur moment pour vous joindre ?• what are the advantages? quels sont les avantages ?e. ( = how much) combien• what will it cost? ça va coûter combien ?• what does it weigh? ça pèse combien ?• what do 2 and 2 make? combien font 2 et 2 ?• what does it matter? qu'est-ce que ça peut bien faire ?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━g. (in relative clauses) ( = that which) (subject of verb) ce qui ; (object of verb) ce que ; (object of verb taking "de") ce dont ; (object of verb taking "à") ce à quoi• what I don't understand is... ce que je ne comprends pas c'est...• what I need is... ce dont j'ai besoin c'est...━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► When what means the ones which, the French pronoun is generally plural.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━► and what...are you coming or what? tu viens ou quoi ? (inf)tell you what, let's stay here another day j'ai une idée: si on restait un jour de plus ?► what about• what about people who haven't got cars? et les gens qui n'ont pas de voiture ?• what about going to the cinema? si on allait au cinéma ?► what for? pourquoi ?• what did you do that for? pourquoi avez-vous fait ça ?• what if this doesn't work out? et si ça ne marchait pas ?• what if he says no? et s'il refuse ?► what of• but what of the country's political leaders? et les dirigeants politiques du pays ?• I've done this job long enough to know what's what je fais ce travail depuis assez longtemps pour savoir de quoi il retourne► what with• what with the stress and lack of sleep, I was in a terrible state entre le stress et le manque de sommeil, j'étais dans un état lamentable3. compounds* * *[wɒt], US [hwɒt] 1.1) ( what exactly) ( as subject) qu'est-ce qui; ( as object) que, qu'est-ce que; ( with prepositions) quoiwhat for? — ( why) pourquoi?; ( concerning what) à propos de quoi?
what's this called in Flemish? —
2) ( in rhetorical questions)what's the use? — ( enquiringly) à quoi bon?; ( exasperatedly) à quoi ça sert?
3) ( whatever)4) ( in clauses) ( as subject) ce qui; ( as object) ce que, (before vowel) ce qu'this is what is called a ‘monocle’ — c'est ce qu'on appelle un ‘monocle’
and what's worse ou better — et en plus
5) (colloq) ( when guessing)it'll cost, what, £50 — ça coutera, quoi, dans les 50 livres?
6) ( inviting repetition)2.what's that? —
1) ( which) quel/quelle/quels/quelles2) ( in exclamations) quel/quellewhat use is that? — lit, fig à quoi ça sert?
3) ( the amount of)what money he earns he spends — tout ce qu'il gagne, il le dépense
3.what little she has — le peu qu'elle a, tout ce qu'elle a
what about prepositional phrase1) ( when drawing attention)what about the letter they sent? — et la lettre qu'ils ont envoyée, alors?
2) ( when making suggestion)3) ( in reply)4.‘what about your sister?’ - ‘what about her?’ — ‘et ta sœur?’ - ‘quoi ma sœur?’
what if prepositional phrase et si5.what with prepositional phrase6.exclamation quoi!, comment!••to give somebody what for — (colloq) GB passer un savon (colloq) à quelqu'un
well, what do you know — iron tout arrive
what do you think I am! — (colloq) tu me prends pour quoi!
what's it to you? — (colloq) en quoi ça vous regarde?
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5 which
A pron1 ( also which one) lequel m, laquelle f ; which do you want, the red skirt or the blue one? laquelle est-ce que tu veux, la jupe rouge ou la bleue? ; which of the groups…? ( referring to one) lequel des groupes…? ; ( referring to several) lesquels des groupes …? ; which of you…? lequel/laquelle etc de vous or d'entre vous…? ; I know which you'd like je sais lequel/laquelle etc tu voudrais ; show her which you mean montre-lui celui/celle etc que tu veux dire ; which is the best/the shortest route? quel est le meilleur chemin/le chemin le plus court? ; do you mind which you have? est-ce que tu as une préférence? ; I don't mind which ça m'est égal ; can you tell which is which? peux-tu les distinguer? ;2 ( relative to preceding noun) ( as subject) qui ; ( as object) que ; ( after prepositions) lequel/laquelle/lesquels/lesquelles ; the painting which hangs in the sitting room le tableau qui est accroché dans le salon ; you'll see some crates behind which I've placed… tu verras des caisses derrière lesquelles j'ai mis… ; the contract which he's spoken about ou about which he's spoken le contrat dont il a parlé ;3 ( relative to preceding clause or concept) ( as subject) ce qui ; ( as object) ce que ; he said he hadn't done it, which may be true/which he can't prove il a nié l'avoir fait, ce qui est peut-être vrai/ce qu'il ne peut pas prouver ; which reminds me… ce qui me fait penser que… ; upon which she disappeared littér sur quoi elle a disparu ; we'll be moving, before which we need to… nous allons déménager mais avant il faut que nous… ; he's resigned, from which we must assume that il a démissionné, d'où on peut déduire que.B det1 ( interrogative) quel/quelle/quels/quelles (before n) ; which books? quels livres? ; which medals did he win? quelles médailles a-t-il gagnées? ; he told me which jacket he'd like il m'a dit quelle veste il aimerait avoir ; she asked me which coach was leaving first elle m'a demandé lequel des cars allait partir le premier ; which one of the children…? lequel or laquelle des enfants…? ;2 ( relative) he left the room, during which time… il a quitté la pièce et pendant ce temps-là… ; you may wish to join, in which case… vous voulez peut-être vous inscrire, auquel cas… ; he failed to apologize, for which mistake he paid dearly sout il ne s'est même pas excusé, (c'est une) erreur qu'il a payée cher.
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