Breakdown of Vous dites un poème et l'enfant lit un conte.
Questions & Answers about Vous dites un poème et l'enfant lit un conte.
Why is it vous dites instead of "vous disez"?
Dire (to say/tell) is an irregular verb. Most verbs end in -ez with vous (like vous parlez or vous lisez), but dire is one of the rare exceptions that ends in -tes. Two other very common exceptions you have likely seen are vous êtes (you are) and vous faites (you do/make). Since l'enfant lit means "the child reads", how does lire change for plural pronouns?
Lire (to read) is irregular. While the singular forms are short (je lis, tu lis, il/elle/on lit), the plural forms add an "s" sound before the ending: nous lisons, vous lisez, ils/elles lisent. In English we "recite" a poem. Do the French just "say" it?
Yes! While dire usually translates to "to say" or "to tell", the expression dire un poème is the natural way to say "to recite a poem" in French. You can use the verb réciter as well, but dire is very common and sounds perfectly natural here. What is the difference between un conte and une histoire?
Une histoire is the general word for any "story" (and it also means "history"). Un conte specifically means "a tale", such as a traditional folk story or a fairy tale (un conte de fées), which is exactly what a child would typically read. Learn Vous dites un poème et l'enfant lit un conte and more in French
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