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Post by Becky (Berkeleytravelers) on Jun 19, 2009 9:17:53 GMT -5
Okay, this is one that's always pretty much defeated me as well. Would it be accurate to generalize by saying that if in English one properly could use "within" (even though it might sound a bit odd - e.g., "within a house" or "within a paper bag" to use the examples above) then it would be correct to use "dans"? And that otherwise (at least in most instances) it would be "en"? Or is this something that I will only learn by hearing the two terms used (which of course is pretty much how we all learned English grammar)?
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Post by Anne on Jun 19, 2009 12:07:02 GMT -5
Well, your rule is usually correct but not always : like if you read Luc's website, you'll see that one says "en prison" while this means within the walls of a prison, and one says "dans le Maine" but "en Pennsylvanie" . As you say, the best way to learn this and many other things is by hearing or reading French, because rules usually have so many exceptions that many of them are hardly worth memorizing .
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Post by GitteK on Jul 8, 2009 5:48:14 GMT -5
Just smile non-stop, make lots of tilting hand gestures, shoulder shrugging, comme si-comme ça, vous savez......... Trust me, it works. I make about 10 grammar faults in each sentence, but everyone seems to understand what I'm saying anyway ! It doesn't really matter, if someone is "en prison" or "dans prison" - the context will give the meaning. (It's only Anne who finds it imperative to correct my lingo....... which she does....... indefatigably ! Oh yes, there was one gentleman at La Cordonnerie this May who had asked me, how I had come to know about this little restaurant and I said I had found it "par accident" - and he very politely told me that it's called "par hasard"....)
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