Questions & Answers about Nous voyageons bientôt.
Why is there an 'e' in voyageons? Shouldn't it be voyagons?
Good eye! For verbs ending in -ger (like voyager), we have to keep the e before the -ons ending for the nous form. If we wrote voyagons, the 'g' followed by an 'o' would make a hard 'g' sound (like in 'go'). The e keeps the 'g' soft (like the 's' in 'measure'). The translation says 'are traveling'. Where is the word for 'are'?
French doesn't have a direct equivalent to the English '-ing' tense. The French present tense covers both! So, nous voyageons translates to both 'we travel' and 'we are traveling'. You never use the verb être (to be) to say you are currently doing an action. How do I ask 'Are we traveling soon?' using est-ce que?
To turn this statement into a yes/no question, you simply place est-ce que at the very beginning of the sentence. It becomes: Est-ce que nous voyageons bientôt ? You don't need to change the word order of the original sentence at all. Is bientôt made up of two different words?
Yes, historically it comes from combining bien (well/very) and tôt (early). Today, it is always written as a single word (bientôt) and simply translates to 'soon'. Notice the little hat (circumflex accent) on the 'o'! Learn Nous voyageons bientôt and more in French
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