Bon jour.
If indirect speech is in the present tense, is it necessary to replace ce/cette/etc with something?
E.g.
Sophie demande à Oliver: “Explique-moi cette règle !”
Elle lui demande de lui expliquer cette règle-là.
Because in the indirect speech we don't know what is "cette" règle.
Hi Jangir,
Your are correct, in reported speech you would just add the word 'là' to the noun.
Bonne Continuation !
Madame Cécile,
I apologize for bothering you. I would like to know whether it depends on context.
Basically, the sentence
Sophie demande à Oliver: “Explique-moi cette règle !”
is from an exercise where one should convert direct speech to indirect.
So I was sure that it is necessary to change "cette" somehow. Like intuition :) But then I saw a "solution" where "cette" had been kept without any "-là" or whatsoever.
Unfortunately, I don't have the original textbook with solutions. Also, I study French myself by listening, I would say, non-academic lessons. I tried searching but failed, probably because my English and French are far from perfect.
Could you please point me to some teaching guides explaining this specific subject? I wouldn't like to go in the wrong direction and potentially mislead others.
Thank you and sorry for my poor English, I try to write myself without any AI and translators :)
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