need french help pls!

kimberley wrote: gosh it's been a while since i learned french . Jacob is really struggling and i remember most words but not all. tried a couple of online dictionaries but they are not getting any hits. they should all be places or animals. can anyone translate these...

des traces

un raton laveur

thanks!

My2Beauties replied: Is this in his french book? I took french for 8 years and I have never heard of those words...des is the preposition "of the"....traces has no meaning, raton has no meaning and neither does laveur. I think that Laveur could be a form of laver which is "to wash" but what form I have no clue! Sorry I couldn't be more help!

JAYMESMOM replied: un raton laveur = racoon

traces - means trace, hint, shadow

I don't know french that is just what I found in dictionary


sorry!

kimberley replied: yay for raccoon! lol thanks!

i got "plotted" for traces but neither plotted nor hint are a place or animal

the words were written in his french notebook by the french teacher. from what i can tell, she may not have included any appropriate accents, so that could be part of the problem. i shall continue to search des traces.

My2Beauties replied: For some reason I just don't think that sounds right, I couldn't pull it up any frech-english dictionary at all! Weird

GavinsMommy replied: des traces means tracks...

i took french for three years...i always had a hundred

Isabelita replied: Does "traces" have any accents on the e or the a?

I know "traces de pas" (I think), means "footprints"

And trace (with an e acute), means "layout"

GavinsMommy replied: yes, that is a good point about it meaning layout. if it is the way i think it is...which we won't know if she left out an accent...then it is ground tracks

ediep replied: well, I have no idea about French but I wanted to tell you that zachsmom speaks french, you could pm her if she doesn't respond to this

kimberley replied: thanks for the help everyone. we just ended up leaving "des traces" blank. i am sure she won't mind that we missed 1 of the 40 words. i really wish he would bring a text book home but apparently they just share them in class and work from their notebooks

i remember Zach's mom speaks french, but figured she was busy. no biggie

Hillbilly Housewife replied:
Heh heh... jsut saw this....

If it's in context of the sentence, for example,

"des traces de raton laveur"

then it would mean

"racoon tracks"

heh heh

"de" is "of", and "des" is "some"

good luck!

sorry i was late!!!!!!!!!!!! pm me next time, i can get those on my cell!!!

kimberley replied: haha thanks! will remember that for next time.

it was actually just a list of 40 words or phrases in french and that one was just "des traces"

Hillbilly Housewife replied: Des traces

on it's own becomes a preposition and a noun.

The english version:

some tracks