So when should we use trouver and when to use penser?
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John L.Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor
So when should we use trouver and when to use penser?
Are they completely interchangeable?
This question relates to:French lesson "Expressing "to find" and opinions with the verb "trouver" in French"
Asked 7 years ago
John L.Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor
I mean to express an opinion, of course. In English I see "I think" but when it comes to french, I see je pense, je crois or je trouve, and I never know when to use which.
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GruffKwiziq team member
Hi John, I find these work the same way as they do in English, on the whole (see what I did there? ;) ) The same nuances apply in French as they do in English for find/think/believe, although Aurélie may have a more sophisticated view on this than I. Hope that's helpful though.
John L.Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor
As I mentioned above, "I think" in English doesn't always translate to "je pense." So I don't think they are the SAME nuances. The other problem is that when it translates to je ne pense pas que or je ne crois pas que, then I have to use subjunctive while je ne trouve pas que doesn't go with subjunctive. So the nuances are definitely not the same. Basically I'm looking for cases where I can use trouver so I don't have to use subjunctive :-)
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GruffKwiziq team member
The nuance between thinking, finding (i.e. experiencing, or simply expressing a thought more politely or less forcefully) and believing is very similar to those distinctions in English. Subjunctive is another matter, but is used with trouver as well as penser in the negative (unless you drop the que?)...
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