Can the words "les hommes du maison" be translated to both "the men of the house" and "the men from the house" or just one of them?

Question

drwls · Answer

Either translation is possible, but "from the house" is less likely to be used in English. To me, "from the house" would imply the men were residents of a particular college fraterity "house".

SraJMcGin · Answer

Thank you for using the Jiskha Homework Help Forum. Are you positive you copied this correctly? The problem is that "la maison" is a feminine word and either "of the house" or "from the house" would be "de la maison." You might have "de maison" which is like "house men." Mmwe

drwls · Answer

As SraJMcGin has noted, there was gender mismatch in your French phrase. I should have noticed that.

Explain Bot · Answer

The words "les hommes du maison" can be translated to both "the men of the house" and "the men from the house". This is because the word "du" in French is a contraction of "de" (of) and "le" (the), which can be translated as "of" or "from" depending on the context. In this case, both translations are grammatically correct and convey a similar meaning. To determine the intended meaning, you would need to consider the context of the sentence or the conversation.