This lesson is more confusing than it needs to be.

Question

You state there are two different structures involved here. In fact there are four:
1. "rappeler + person one's reminded of + à + person being reminded" ;
2 "me/te/lui/nous/vous/leur + rappeler + person one is reminded of " ;
3 "rappeler + à + person being reminded + de + [infinitif]";
4 "me/te/lui/nous/vous/leur + rappeler + de + [infinitif] "
Could this not be split into two lessons referring to A - 1 and 2, then B - 3 and 4? That would give struggling students the opportunity to crack each structure individually. As it stands, one has to hold and identify four structures simultaneously.
Or am I missing something? Is there a hidden logic that I have failed to spot?

Céline Pickard · Accepted Answer

Bonjour David,
The lesson is talking about 2 structures because:
- the structures in 1 "rappeler + person one's reminded of + à + person being reminded" and 2 "me/te/lui/nous/vous/leur + rappeler + person one is reminded of " are essentially the same, with the second structure using an object pronoun (me/te/lui/nous/vous/leur) to replace "à + person being reminded" from the first structure.
Luc rappelleson ex à Marie ->Luc lui rappelle son ex
- Similarly, the structures 3 and 4 are variants of each other, with structure 4 using object pronouns to replace "à + person being reminded" from structure 3
Marie rappelle à Luc de faire la vaisselle -> Marie lui rappelle de faire la vaisselle
This grouping was done to emphasize the core difference between reminding someone of a person/thing (structures 1 and 2) and reminding someone to do something (structures 3 and 4).
I will pass on your feedback to the French language team.
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

David Wright · Answer

Thank you. Each of the four structures seem different to me. I find it especially frustrating because this lesson gives no indication of what general principle is involved here (surely the sentence structures for 'rappeler' cannot be unique in French) making it difficult to seek help from a grammar text book.

Laura Copland · Answer

Thank you to David W. and Celine. You both broke this down for me in a very comprehensible way. I got it right on the next quiz. Much appreciated!