Je n'avais jamais vu ça, on aurait dit un film d'horreur !

Question

Hello.The English sentence is: I'd never seen that, it was like in a horror movie!I must have missed the rule that explains the use of conditional past in French. Can you enlighten me please. Thanks.

Accepted Answer

'on aurait dit' is a French 'fixed expression' - it doesn't always translate directly into English. It is usually translated as something along the lines of 'it looked/seemed/sounded like', but the more literal 'one would have said' can work in some situations. It contains the inference of doubt - it looked like, but was it really?. It is past tense, because it is a past event.

Answer

Hi Jenk,I've had a look at the text, but don't understand why they need to use the past conditional?"c'était comme un film d'horreur" would suffice in my opinion. My understanding is from the text only.Jim