m'a gâché la vie?

Paul V.C1Kwiziq community member

m'a gâché la vie?

Why "m'a gâché la vie" and not "a gâché ma vie" or "m'est gâchée la vie".

This question relates to:French dictation exercise "Fighting hypocondria"

Dictation exercise C1

Asked 5 years ago

CécileKwiziq Native French TeacherCorrect answer

Hi Paul,

My preferred option is -

'...m'a gâché la vie'

You can also say -

'...a gâché ma vie'

But

'm'est gâchée la vie' is incorrect!

Like05 years ago

Chris W.C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

The sentence, m'a gâché la vie, you have to parse such that me is the a direct object and not used reflexively. There fore the version m'est gâchée la vie is wrong. In the second version you quote, a gâché ma vie, the original OCD "me" turned into the posessive pronoun ma. Same meaning but different grammatical construction.

Like05 years ago

Paul V. asked:

m'a gâché la vie?

Why "m'a gâché la vie" and not "a gâché ma vie" or "m'est gâchée la vie".

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