viens-tu ? is indeed rather formal, but used by the well educated.
est-ce que tu viens ? is rather used by the poorly educated.
“ tu viens ? ” is correct (and usual) french language.
“poorly educated”. Seems like an ad hominem argument (i.e. not an argument).
I would argue that asking a question in a non-question format such as “tu viens?”, leaving only the verbal intonation to determine if it’s a question or a statement is poor usage of the language. Yes, it’s used in France, but so what? They also “do races” (faire des courses) when going shopping or “faire du shopping” which is even worse.
I remember Memrise marking as a mistake questions such as “viens-tu?”, which is a correct ‘question-form’ sentence. Adding “est-ce que” in front of a ‘statement-form’ sentence also creates a question.
Well educated or poorly educated refer to social categories. The fact that such categories include individual persons doesn’t make such reference an ad hominem argument at all.
Unless, of course one’s political views are that no one should be allowed to speak of social categories ; that’s pure nonsense, and intellectual terrorism.
Moreover, denying different education levels equals to denying the very notion of language levels, in which case any contribution to this discussion is useless.
Verbal intonation is a very part of the french language as well as many other ones. What is poor usage of language is ignoring verbal intonation.
The fact that adding “est-ce que” in front of a ‘statement-form’ sentence also creates a question has nothing to do with tthe fact that doing so, if certainly correct, is nonetheless not well educated.
“it’s used in France, but so what?”… Sorry to tell you: France is the country where people natively speak french, and have been doing so for quite a few centuries. Seems to me that the way the French speak french is somehow relevant to appreciate what is correct language (not the Belgian, nor the Canadian).
Arguing that Memrise marking as a mistake questions such as “viens-tu?” is nonsense: Memrise is not a reference for French language (nor for any other).
Summarising your arguments: 1) France is the place that matters, 2) education (according to France standards) is what matters, and 3) the rest is “nonsense”. Great objective and measurable points - got it. If you’re well ‘educated’, you’ll understand that the next response to this kind of condescension is insult. So why do it?
Belittling people (although a common sport in France) is still a crappy behaviour, in any culture. Education varies in many countries and assuming that ‘your’ education is the right one is plain arrogance and simple minded. It’d be nice if arguments could be limited to using measurable facts and logic, but “you didn’t go to my school, therefore you’re wrong” doesn’t magically make intonation an integral part of the French language (this is not Chinese or Thai) and therefore the validity of question-form sentences remains.
We seem to both agree that there’s nothing wrong with any of the question forms or even using intonation in the statement-form, other than the subjective condescending remark of “poorly educated”.
I therefore reiterate that Memrise should not represent the limited lexicon (geographically) of regional words and expressions in their main base courses, and question-form sentences should be valid answers. Creating regional courses for various dialects in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Quebec, Haiti, etc. could be interesting, but only if done separately.
Votre prose est un parfait exemple de malhonnêteté intellectuelle, à moins que vous ne sachiez pas lire. Je n’ai nullement tenu les propos que vous me prêtez.
Yes, France is the place that matters when discussing what is correct French language. Claiming that the French language spoken in France is just a dialect of French is beyond nonsense.
Denying that intonation is an integral part of the French language, at least as regards indicating a question, is, at best, plain ignorance.
Not recognising that there are different language levels indicates that you should consider borrowing a decent dictionary of French language ; or, if I may suggest, Le Bon Usage de Maurice Grevisse.
Dès lors, plutôt que vous prétentieusement vous aventurer à jouer les donneurs de leçons de français, langue que vous ne maîtrisez visiblement pas, mais qui est ma langue maternelle, vous seriez mieux inspiré d’en apprendre autre chose que des rudiments, ou votre propre dialecte local.
Sur ce, au vu de votre évidente supériorité intellectuelle, je vous lirai dorénavant d’un derrière distrait.
I came here to comment about “es-tu?” vs “tu es?” etc, and I see that there’s some vehement discussion going on already. I am not a native French speaker, but went through French immersion in Canada. I believe I was always taught the “es-tu?” form by my teachers (who were all French Canadian, whether Quebequois or Acadien)
Regardless of correctness, I believe that it should be taught the “grammatically correct” way, but that any widely accepted colloquial form should also be accepted as correct. Even if the “grammatically correct” version isn’t the one being taught, it should at least be accepted as a correct answer. It’s very frustrating to keep getting questions wrong even though you are technically answering in a more correct form.
I don’t have particularly strong feelings about grammatical correctness, but if I’m already doing something in “most correct” way I don’t want to feel like I’m training myself out of that by using Memrise to practice
tl;dr: they should always have the “es-tu?” interrogative form included as a correct answer, even if it isn’t what’s taught.
I fully agree with you: alternate forms should always be accepted as correct answers.
My point was to comment on the “gramatically correct” issue. es-tu…?, tu es…? (with proper intonation) and est-ce que tu es… are all grammatically correct forms.
The difference is in language level, just as BS is not at the same level as nonsense. Es-tu prêt? is rather formal, and seldom used in spoken french ; Tu es prêt ? is “mid-level” language ; est-ce que tu es prêt? is rather poor language from rather poorly educated citizens. IMHO, es-tu prêt? is the form that should be taught.
I’m very sorry for the vehement discussion. The problem was that “patrickbouvryca” came in with what looks like a politically stricly egalitarist point of view, whereby he denies that there are different language levels, corresponding to different levels of “academic” education. Moreover, that person, while initially wrongly assuming and blaming me for using what he calls an ad hominem argument, proceeds with a very ad hominem argument against myself. Such an attitude is very far from being relevant when discussing linguistic issues. That is basic trolling - or, to be very clear, that’s pure, well… BS.
In French 3, I cannot get through the first Chatbot (it asks a question but then only has punctuation marks available as answers) and Grammerbot will not accept the correct answer for je ne suis pas.
Just putting this out there: I found this vocab term a little sexist! It felt like they were talking about women being crazy and there was no equivalent “Il est bazarre”.
Also—really enjoying the app! This is a very small complaint, and your support site directed me here
There are several mistakes in French 2 in time definition. For example quinze heures and others. Please recheck the time definitions of all phrases. 6.26 is not 26 minutes past 7
(Apologies for responding to such an old comment it just seems you didn’t get much of a response at the time)
Without trying to dispute your point or anything I would just like to point out that “elle est bizarre” isn’t the only place where there is only one gendered example and it doesn’t seem to prefer male or female, I think it’s just to not force repetition just on gender, hope it helps !
(Attatched is a screenshot of some of the phrases in reference)
Best of luck learning / Bonne chance apprentissage
Hi, I noticed someone bringing this up before but did not get any responses so I’d like to ask again. The volume of the native speakers’ videos is wayyy too low, which makes it a hard time for users to adjust the volume back and forth. Please fix it if possible.
Empecé a utlilizar Memrise ayer y iba super bien y hoy por la mañana cuando quiero estudiar francés de nuevo me saltan errores graves (para mi) que me ayudan a no comprar el servicio
-A la hora de organizar las palabras para hacer la frase correcta, no salen todas las palabras.
La definición no es la correcta.
Esto confunde mucho al que no tiene ni idea en Francés.
I am also a Memrise user. To help identify what the problem may be, can you post a link to the course you are having a problem with? Also, are you learning from the app (iOS or android) or from the web version?
También soy usuario de Memrise. Para ayudar a identificar cuál puede ser el problema, ¿puede publicar un enlace al curso con el que tiene un problema? Además, ¿está aprendiendo de la aplicación (iOS o Android) o de la versión web?
I can see now that the course you are learning is the ‘offcial’ Memrise course “French 1” (for Spanish speakers) and I have looked at the two examples you gave, which are in Level 3.
Clearly, there are some words missing from your first example. All the words seem to be there for the second example, so your answer should be accepted as correct. It looks like there is a ‘bug’ in the course. I have been learning Spanish 1 - 7 (for English speakers) and have not seen any similar bugs.
I will move your post to the forum topic which covers the ‘official’ French courses and tag the Memrise French expert @fanny_sta so that she can take a look and advise you. I hope that will help.
Hola de nuevo Lidia,
Ahora puedo ver que el curso que está aprendiendo es el curso ‘oficial’ de Memrise ‘Francés 1’ (para hispanohablantes) y he visto los dos ejemplos que dio, que están en el Nivel 3.
Claramente, faltan algunas palabras en su primer ejemplo. Todas las palabras parecen estar ahí para el segundo ejemplo, por lo que su respuesta debe aceptarse como correcta. Parece que hay un ‘error’ en el curso. He estado aprendiendo español 1-7 (para hablantes de inglés) y no he visto ningún error similar.
Moveré tu publicación al tema del foro que cubre los cursos de francés ‘oficiales’ y etiquetaré a la experta en francés de Memrise @fanny_sta para que pueda echar un vistazo y asesorarte. Espero que le ayudará.
Hi @alanh & @maxinedownunder (and others), having finished all the MemRise Italian courses, I’ve now moving onto MemRise French to ‘brush up’ my ‘O’ level French.
Seeing so many posts makes me wonder (sorry I haven’t researched it - there are some 340 posts) are there a lot of issues or alternatives that have been missed or has everything been dealt with, in which case this is a set of courses in excellent condition?
I’m really not qualified to answer @DW7. I haven’t worked on any of the official French courses for ages. In fact, when I think about it I never did finish them all anyway. I must get back to them “sometime”. I not spending anywhere near the time on Memrise than I have in the past. That’s not been a deliberate choice - life has got gotten in the way!
