Justine
"Il y a un beau notaire au village" vs. "Il y a un bon notaire au village." Which is correct? Or if both are correct, which is more common? (Intended meaning: There is a good notary in the village.) Il y a un beau notaire au village. Il y a un bon notaire au village.
Sep 20, 2014 5:45 PM
Answers · 6
2
'Beau' means he's handsome, 'bon' means he's good!
September 20, 2014
Ah, you're probably right! Alas, I can't give you a link because it's from a four month audio course and I've organized my notes by subject matter rather then lesson number, so I can't easily find the same place in the recording again. When I did the lesson, I wrote down what I thought the audio said and what made sense to me at the time. It's only as I'm reviewing my notes later that I'm finding things that now don't make sense in light of the French I've subsequently learned. (Hence all my italki questions lately!) I understand the theory behind audio-only courses, but sometimes they are a bit frustrating if you’re having problems understanding exactly what is being said and you want to get it exactly right rather than just an approximation! Thanks to you – and others – for all your answers so far. This is very helpful indeed, as I’ve learned a lot just from the italki answers over the last week.
September 20, 2014
Are you sure that the word was 'beau', not 'bon'? Because the next word (notaire) began with the letter 'n', perhaps the nasal 'on' sound of the French word disappeared into 'n' of 'notaire', and it sounded a bit like 'beau'. Can you give us the link so that we can listen to it?
September 20, 2014
That's what I thought. In the recording I listened to, the person who says this is the notary's wife, so I don't think she wanted to tell other people that he was good-looking, but rather that he was a good notary! Maybe it was just a very strange choice of words in that context.
September 20, 2014
Il y a un bon notaire au village is good
September 20, 2014
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