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What is the capital of Tunisia?

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What is the capital of Tunisia?

Acheter à, to mean both “from” and “for”?

I would translate the following sentence:

Can you buy a birthday cake for my nephew from that fancy bakery we went to last year?

In french this way:

Pouvez-vous acheter un gâteau d’anniversaire pour mon neveu, à cette
boulangerie de luxe où nous sommes allés l’année dernière?


Q:Can I have more explanations about why did you use “à” in the last sentence ?
A: Yes, I’ll try:

à is a french préposition used here in order to describe a destination;

FR: Où allons nous? Nous allons à Paris.
EN: Where are we going? We’re going to Paris.

FR: Où allons nous pour acheter le gâteau d’anniversaire? Nous allons à cette
boulangerie de luxe où nous sommes allés l’année dernière.

EN: Where are we going to buy the birthday cake ? We’re going to that fancy bakery we went to last year.

The question you linked already tells a way to disambiguate the intended meaning when à is followed by a person:

J’achète un livre à/pour mon ami.

  • à : Ceci peut signifier deux choses selon le contexte :
  1. J’achète un livre avec l’intention de le donner à mon ami.
  • pour : Ceci peut signifier deux choses selon le contexte :
  1. J’achète un livre avec l’intention de le donner à mon ami.

Note that the same issue does happen with lui:

À propos de mon ami, est-ce que tu peux lui acheter un gâteau d’anniversaire.

Here the friend can be either the recipient or the seller.

However, your English sentence is not a good example of this potential issue as you use a different à:

Can you buy a birthday cake for my nephew from that fancy bakery we went to last year?

Here from doesn’t mean from someone but from some place. In such case, there is no ambiguity so you might still use à for both terms:

Est-ce que tu peux acheter un gâteau d’anniversaire à mon neveu à la super pâtisserie où on est allés l’année dernière ?

In any case, the meaning is very often obvious, even without more context than the sentence itself. e.g.

J’ai acheté des chaussures à mon fils (for my son)

J’ai acheté une langouste à mon poissonnier (from my fishmonger)

I think you understand and explain perfectly well.

In french “acheter à …” can both mean “buy from” and “buy for”, depending on the context, the sentence.

 

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What is the capital of Tunisia?