Ce qui les

Question

« …toute une génération d'enfants français a grandi en regardant Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon et plus tard Pokémon, ce qui les a fait tomber amoureux du style japonais. »

It’s « une génération », why is it « ce qui les » which is plural?

Accepted Answer

Hi M, 
Just to add to what has already been said.
1. Both a grandi and ont grandi is accepted whether you agree 'grew up' with 'generation' or 'enfants'.
2. What made them ( children) fall in love with is more exact I think than what made it ( generation) fall in love with  so it has to be
'les a fait tomber amoureux ...'

Answer

Hi M,The subject of the text is "D'enfants" and the direct objects after "regardant" are "Dragon Ball" etc. so the "les" is the direct object pronoun referencing "Dragon Ball etc"Hope this helps.Jim

Answer

Sorry let me try to be a bit more precise.

To me the subject seems to be “génération”, no? You could restate it as “toute une génération a grandi”.

More so the sentence says “a grandi” instead of “ont grandi” if enfants (plural) was the subject.

And to me and according to the hint, “ce qui” is already referring to the mangas.

- which made them fall in love. So les has to be referring to the children.

Answer

Hi M,"toute une génération d'enfants français"   I previously picked on the children as being the (part) subject, in fact the complete subject would be as above.Jim

Answer

Hi Ann, just to add to Jim's answer:

The sentence has a compound subject. The phrase ...les a fait tomber... , using the plural les, clearly refers to the children. It is by virtue of using les that it becomes clear what the writer is referring to.

Answer

On reflection, I believe that Chris is right. The "les" does refer to the children being made to fall in love.......Jim