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To express remembering [something/someone] in French, there are two main phrases you can use.
Learn how to use "se souvenir de" and "se rappeler (de)" in French
Se souvenir de [quelque chose/quelqu'un]
Se souvenir de is the slightly more sophisticated option to say you remember.
Note that you can never omit the de.
Note that you can never omit the de.
Remember that de becomes d' in front of a vowel or mute h, and contracts into du or des if followed by le or les.
Se rappeler (de) [quelque chose/quelqu'un]
Nous nous rappelons la première fois que nous t'avons rencontré.We remember the first time we met you.
Though the established expression is se rappeler [quelque chose/quelqu'un], nowadays many French natives use se rappeler de [quelque chose/quelqu'un] colloquially - probably a mix-up with se souvenir de - so much so that they have become interchangeable in French. If anything, the historical version sounds more sophisticated.
Cases with stress pronouns = to remember me, you, him...
To express to remember [someone], the correct way is to use se souvenir de + [stress pronoun]. However, as stated previously, the expression se rappeler de is also used colloquially nowadays, and perfectly acceptable here:
se souvenir de / se rappeler de [moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles]
-> It's worth noting that se rappeler without de is not an option here: Tu te rappelles moi.
se souvenir de / se rappeler de [moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles]
-> It's worth noting that se rappeler without de is not an option here: Tu te rappelles moi.
See how to conjugate souvenir Conjugate venir/tenir and derivatives in the present tense in French (Le Présent) and rappeler Conjugate -eter and -eler verbs in the present tense in French (Le Présent) - main rule (ll / tt) in the present tense.
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