ce qu'on a envie

Question

Why is "ce dont on a envie" (in the fourth sentence) not correct here? For that matter, why is "ce qu'on a envie" correct? The expression is "avoir envie de", isn't it? What am I missing here?

Also: why must the past tense in English ("didn't pay", "were encouraged") necessarily be translated as the present tense ("ne paye pas", "est encouragé") in French?

And finally, why is it incorrect to use "souhaiter" rather than "aimer" in the last sentence?

Accepted Answer

Hi Sally,
Just to add to Alan's excellent answer and firstly to address your query about the use of the present in the French, I have looked at the text in English and it says -
"...you don't pay ... you are encouraged " so the present is indeed correct.
The verbs aimer and souhaiter are similar in meaning and either should probably have been accepted .
To go back to 'avoir envie de' , I think you would say -
"...on donne ce qu'on a envie ( de donner)", 'de donner' is an ellipsis which is implied but not present probably not to repeat 'donner' twice and here, 'ce dont on a envie' would not be right .
Ce dont j'ai beaucoup envie, c'est de faire le tour du monde = What I really feel like doing is to go round the world
Hope this helps!

Answer

Your first question interested me, because your logic seems perfect, yet I feel like I've only ever heard "ce qu'on a envie". But that's probably because I know it from Veronique Sanson's song Chanson sur ma drôle de vie.

On est toujours amoureux

Et on fait ce qu'on a envie

So I did a bit of googling and it appears that she's wrong:

Duos volatils, 15 chansons de Véronique Sanson pour nous rappeler qu’il faut toujours partir pour inventer sa drôle de vie, être toujours amoureux, et surtout faire ce dont on a envie. Ou même ce qu’on a envie, avec la faute de français qui était gravée dans le tube.

I don't know if it was deliberate because it sounds better, or it's just a very common fault for native speakers. But probably I've heard this too many times to change now.

I don't have access to the exercise, so I don't know if there's something about the context that would make it correct. For example, I suppose you could, correctly, say "ce qu'on a envie de manger".