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Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers
14,989 questions • 32,502 answers • 1,022,349 learners
I read somewhere that ne ... pas and ne ...point were the first negative constructions in the evolution of the French language. I can just imagine someone trekking through the woods in Old French times and saying, "Not another step." Or a tired monk in some scriptorium copying over an illegible text and saying, "Not another period."
Both of the sentences above are translated as "J'ai du le faire".
BUT the two formulations in English have not-very-subtle differences in meaning.
"I had to..." implies "I was obligated to.." or "I was forced to..." - very definite!
"I must have..." implies "I may have forgotten to ..." -- quite indefinite!
How are these different flavors of meaning expressed en francais?
excellent essay
It would be so helpful with exercises like this if we could slow the playback down. I play it 20 times and still struggle at times.
Does anyone know of any websites where you can paste the sentence in and adjust the playback?
Thanks
If we had a dog, is same as.. if we were to have a dog, which would seem to be imperfect, not passé composé. You have trained us to use imperfect in this situation: Si nous avions un chien.......
Grégoire
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