#J'ai des animaux de compagnie -> 我有宠物
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I'm laughing at OP calling "Je fais du velo" (literal translation: I do of-the bike) economical, when the English translation is simply "I bike." There are many attributes I would ascribe to French, but "economy of language" is not one of them.
So I've been learning French for a while and 'faire' is actually an incredible word. Like what a fucking breakthrough in economy of language.
Faire is a verb that is usually translated into English as "to do/to make," but it covers way more actions than that, which is very confusing for new speakers. because (I have realized) that's not really what faire means.
Faire is actually a word that just gestures vaguely in the direction of the object of the sentence and goes "you know." "Je fais du velo." "Je fais du courses." "Je fais mes valises." I'm biking. I go grocery shopping. I'm packing my bags. You're just sort of pointing at a bike and going "you know, the obvious thing you'd do with it."
English: "You mean RIDE it??"
French: "Sure whatever."
Like idk I just really enjoy the concept of a catch-all verb that you can just slap onto almost anything because who fucking gives a shit, you get the idea. There's a bike. what do you think I'm going to do with it.
#you want to see true economy of language try learning Mandarin Chinese#I've been taking the duolingo french course for chinese speakers#there have been several occasions where I paused mid lesson to cry laughing#at the sheer disparity in wordcount/syllable count between the French sentence and its Chinese translation#il y a de la pluie -> 有雨#J'ai des animaux de compagnie -> 我有宠物
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