Which language do you enjoy studying the most?

Did you begin to study Latin or French first?

@SW-User

@XenonRush French was first because much of my family speaks it. I didn’t start learning Japanese until college.

You seem to know much about languages! What is it called when you replace names of things for the word “it”? Like how does “it” work in French? I think I know, but I am not totally sure. For example, let’s say I want to say in French “I want the beer” that would be...

Je veux la bière.

NOW, If i say it again and I do not want to say “beer” again, I can say “I want it”. Would the word for “it” be “la” because “beer” is feminine?

Je [b]la[/b] veux.


Would the “la” really go BEFORE THE VERB? That just sounds really stupid to me..? Literally isn’t that saying “I it want”? That just sounds grammatically incorrect?


@SW-User

@XenonRush I've been studying linguistics in college, so yeah, it's something I'm interested in. :) Replacing nouns with pronouns like "it" is called [i]anaphora[/i]. And yes, in French, the pronoun has to match the gender of its referent, so you would use "la" since "bière" is feminine. Out of context, "Je la veux" could mean "I want her", but since it's referring to beer, it would be translated as "it".

Word order in French I'm a little less clear on, but I know "Je la veux" is correct. Compare "Je veux te voir", I want to see you, literally "I want you see".