Affirmative use of prétendre with subjunctive relative clausePensée et Structure, copyright 1969 by John/Jean Darbelnet, a French textbook that has haunted me since 1971, distinguishes between using prétendre in the affirmative with the indicative and with the subjunctive - a distinction blessedly no longer "felt" by the modern Frenchman, or so I am told....
So, per this evidently out-of-date usage:
Il prétend qu'il a tout compris, c'est-a-dire, il affirme que.....
Il prétend qu'on ne fasse rien sans le consulter, c'est-a-dire, il exige que......
The text makes further such distinctions for comprendre, supposer, dire, et il me semble que. This can be found in numbered paragraph 215. My original copy was so marked up, I bought a second copy on Amazon.
I would love input from native French speakers....
Hi,
I was wondering why there was no liason between voudrais + une, or veux+câlin?
thanks in advance
It is my observation that a Frenchman will do almost anything to avoid double objective pronouns - for fear of making mistakes and because they sound fussy, awkward, and a bit snobbish. As they are used less and less frequently, the "correct" order is being lost even to the French. I have been encouraged by my teachers to reformulate to avoid this mare's nest. So
Je lui ai donné cela plutôt que je le lui ai donné.
Why is it "Mes pieds sont gelés" rather than "Les pieds sont gelés"? I understood that you could use la, le, l' when referring to your own body parts. How can you tell which to use?
Pensée et Structure, copyright 1969 by John/Jean Darbelnet, a French textbook that has haunted me since 1971, distinguishes between using prétendre in the affirmative with the indicative and with the subjunctive - a distinction blessedly no longer "felt" by the modern Frenchman, or so I am told....
So, per this evidently out-of-date usage:
Il prétend qu'il a tout compris, c'est-a-dire, il affirme que.....
Il prétend qu'on ne fasse rien sans le consulter, c'est-a-dire, il exige que......
The text makes further such distinctions for comprendre, supposer, dire, et il me semble que. This can be found in numbered paragraph 215. My original copy was so marked up, I bought a second copy on Amazon.
I would love input from native French speakers....
In the following part of the lesson
Note that with the following expressions of opinion, the mode of the following verb changes whether the opinion is expressed in an affirmative or negative form (using negative structures like ne...pas etc).
I believe the addition of "in accordance with" between "changes" and "whether" would obviate listening for "or not", which does not appear, and thereby throwing off the student. Alas, it through me. Thus rephrased text would therefore be
Note that with the following expressions of opinion, the mode of the following verb changes IN ACCORDANCE WITH whether the opinion is expressed in an affirmative or negative form (using negative structures like ne...pas etc).
I really enjoyed this exercise. Maybe I still have a bit of that young child in me, but I found it very useful in learning some of the vocabulary. And, fun, too.
My question: "Les livres etalent leur savoir..."
Since one cannot tell from the dictation if "savoir" is singular or plural, would it be incorrect to write, "Les livres etalent leurs savoirs..."? This was the only mistake that I made, and I hesitated as to whether or not I should use the singular or the plural. I chose the plural, "leurs savoirs" since each book would have its own individual knowledge to show off rather than the books showing off a shared knowledge together.
Maybe both could be correct: "leur savoir" and "leurs savoirs" in this case.
Merci pour votre aide !
In the sentence in the two-question quiz, it asks me to translate a possible sentence fragment of Since there is NO punctuation, this sentence can be taken as either an imperative statement "Talk with Paul!" or as the interrogative "Do you speak with Paul?"
I realize that it is in the question section, but it is still a subject-verb inversion.
Can this sentence get punctuation added or an audio file added so that it is easier to know which intent is implied?
Unless I am misremembering imperative statements...
Thank you.
Bonjour,
Can you please explain why our house would use the nous pronoun instead of the possesive on of notres, as the house belongs to us?
Merci
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