duchien (to my knowledge, there's no such thing as "de le") would not have worked. there's a particular english idiom having to do with men who are descended from female dogs. i suppose i could have gone with dechienne, which would have been less cumbersome but also less accurate or d'unechienne, which would have been more accurate but also more awkward. i thought de la chienne (literally translated: "from the female dog") was the best compromise. [QUOTE]
Seems I've got a problem with the quote signs :p
right again. There's no such 'de le' thing in french. But it was a way to litterally stick and translate the La Chienne into masculine. Because in France, when you add De before the last name, it usually (not always) acknowledge a noble title (like baronness, count, prince, etc). And you can go with very long names lkie: du Fayet de La Tour, Roullée de la Bouille, Duguet de la Tour Du Pin (all fictive names but... see my point). I guess the idiom you're refering to would be 'son of a bitch' something like that. The litteral translation would have been "fils de pute" (much more cumbersome that the one you picked up)
[QUOTE]it was an easy enough language for me, but that's probably because i started learning it nursery school (2 years before first grade). at that age, almost any language is easy to learn.
