French sentences explained in plain English - Ending sentences in a preposition in French.
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 30. 06. 2020
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In English, we end sentences in prepositions all the time which leads us to try the same in French. But it doesn't work!
In my 4-level explainer video, I show you how to get around the fact that you can't make a correct French sentence when ending it in a preposition.
Let me know in the comments what you think!
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#FrenchPrepositions #FrenchGrammarMadeEasy #FrenchGrammar
This is why I love this channel. You focus on very important topics that natives don't explain well or don't explain them at all. Thank you so much, it really clears up a lot of things. Your style of teaching is excellent, keep it up!
I'm so happy that you get exactly the benefits that I try to give you. I will continue! Bon français Amjad!
Je suis francophone de naissance mais , dans mon travail, je dois enseigner en français à de jeunes enfants non francophones. Vos vidéos sont une "mine" pour moi car elles me permettent de mieux comprendre quelles sont les difficultés rencontrées par des élÚves devant utiliser le français comme langue de scolarisation et ainsi de mieux pouvoir les aider. Bravo, very good job!
It is exactly the same in correct English. The way I was taught it in the 1950s was 'A preposition is something you never end a sentence with'.
French would be easy if people spoke English correctly. However, there are many cases where it sounds ridiculous. 'Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.'
@Real Aiglon You display a total ignorance of language and English in particular. And, daring to call the people who codified the language, they didn't make it up, as ignorant shows you to be exceptionally arrogant and stupid.
You are right! Many years ago I bought a book to improve my English and in that book it said that correct English sentences should never end with a preposition.
Jâaime bien cette vidĂ©o! A propos de la phrase vous avez utilisĂ© pour dĂ©crire "lequel" , je pense pas que la phrase contiendrai pas " mise". Il faut pas quâon fasse lâaccord parce que le sujet direct de le verbe mettre se trouve aprĂšs le verbe. Donc on dirait "jâai mis"
As a German I realised that the French grammar is a little bit closer to my own language than to English. But on this channel I benefit from the English explanations of French. I do learn both languages. Great!
I think some of these examples are equivalent in English, if you say 'I need a cat' then 'besoin un chat' indeed doesn't work because it needs de, but if we mimic the structure in french, then we need it in both. "J'ai besoin d'un chat" is the same as "I have need of a cat". So I think the earlier point about making things sound posh "The table on which I put my mug" then you can keep thinking you're posh and say "I have need of a video on french grammar". Probably doesn't work for everything but it helps me immensely.
Such a good video though I didn't know any of this beforehand!
Actually there is another way to see it: "lequel" is actually "le+quel" and "which" directly translates in "quel"... Basically, it is the same as translating "lequel" into "the which". Hence the reason why questions involving these prepositions start with "Quel": "Sur quelle table as-tu posé ta tasse?". In this case, we drop the determiner since this slot is already filled with "quelle".
Thank you for explaining this so clearly, I love the logical way you figure out how to use English structure to transition into french, that makes it so much easier!
Avec grand plaisir, Callum :)
Praise CZcams for making this video magically show on my frontpage
Praise!
Thank you for this essential video for individual s serious about learning French
On the french learners need to master the cortrct use of the relative pronoun "dont"
it would be advisable to do a lesson on correct word order of relative clauses that may follow the relative pronoun "dont" .... my focus here is on those relative clauses that contain objective case elements after the use of "dont"
In high school... a sentence like
"The man whose wallet I found came to see me "
I initially translated as :
L"homme dont le portefeiiille j'ai trouve est venu me voir"
On checking my homework... my parents ... both fluent French speakers.. corrected my sentence to read
"L'homme dont j'ai trouve le portrfeuil est venu me voir"
Lesson here... word order in the clause created by "dont" takes on a subject... verb.. object format instead of the more convoluted word order needed to express the same idea in English ...
my mistake was using that convoluted :relative clause with object" english word order to translatethe idea to french ...
as they apply to the use of the relartive pronoun "dont"re creating
thereby creating the oddity of a french sentence my parents were keen to pick up and correct me on
Thought these contrasting features of both languages would be helpful to your followers who are serious about learning and using correct french ...
Forgive the disjointed appearance of ideas expressed here.. I hit send accidentally b4 proofreading
I think my message was understood noneless
Thank you
Woaw! I've never noticed that the relative pronoun "dont" is used only with verbs wich need the preposition "de". It's so natural for me. So thank you for teaching me my own speaking! French is so weird đ±
De rien :).
It's s hard for us English speakers because we use "whose, of which, of whom.." so rarely now.
Le français n'est pas bizarre, il est juste diffĂ©rent (de l'anglais). đ
English is actually weirder. We have insane constructions like double prepositionsâŠâhe keeps going on on that subjectâ.
And isn't "oĂč" used in the same way with verbs, which need "Ă "?
Ooft that one was heavy going, but certainly cleared up âdontâ for me! One thing I would say with matching to English where possible is for âavoir besoin de quelquechoseâ - Iâve always thought of it to be âto have need of somethingâ...so the âdeâ is still an âofâ, although maybe not a common way to say it in English.
Yes that's a great way to look at it. Whatever helps form that connection in your brain, do it!
Great video!
Thanks, another good one!
Excellent as always. Merci!!
Merci Ă toi :)
Thanks so much for the excellent and helpful explanations. Love your videos and teaching
What a great video!! Thanks - beautiful, elegant explanation
Super!
That was awesome!finally get it!
God bless you, sir.
Merci Alex....this explained a lot !
De rien Michael. Ăa me fait plaisir !
Another great video. This channel is the best French instruction I've found so far on CZcams.
A really good and helpful video on some very tricky points of French grammar. Thanks for posting.
Very interesting, thank you. I appreciate you tying your explanation to how things are phrased in English.
Great videos, thanks a lot. On my french classes, teacher explains all in...french đ And if i knew french so well to understand explanations, well, then i would not need classes. Keep up, this is great
There are pros and cons to everything. Overall, your listening and understanding will benefit so much from being taught in French. I hope to fill in the gaps in English about specific points that we miss in classes taught in French :)
OMG is this the best explanation of the use of relative pronouns et prepositions dans le monde entier? congratulations - good examples well explained. please dont (ha) be afraid to go to more complex grammar - nous lâadorons âŠ
laquelle lequel bisous
Yes plz talk about qui/que!
Une excellente vidéo !
The real issue here is that, if you speak English properly, all this is straightforward and natural. We just lazily elide so many propositions.
Very useful video, thank you.
Yes, please make a video about: sur lequel, par lequel, sous lequel...etc.
Thank you for beng so sincere and humble! This was really helpful!
You're welcome. Stick around for more đ
This is very helpful and relative information. Thank you.
You're so welcome!
Thank you!
You're welcome!
Watched this video yesterday and again now, absolutely invaluable and learnt a lot from you, I even had to pause as itâs quite intense and requires concentration. Again, thank you so much, you are really an excellent teacher and who wouldâve thought to go into so much detail to explain it to the tee. Wishing you so much success in your business, thank you for helping us learn Alex. I wish everyone knew you Alex!
J'adore votre ton de voix et votre vitesse lorsque vous parlez, merci beaucoup.
Excellent video . . . Best Iâve seen.
Thanks!
DONT - my nemesis too! Brilliant video. The best source have found to tackle this tricky block to talking and thinking in French. Thanks this is a great channel.
Thanks again Alex. Quite often I use my Spanish to try to understand the French sentance structure. In these cases it didn't work well and now I realise why. It's been really helpful to understand this from an 'old fashioned' English perspective.
I think I'll still struggle with dont for a while though!
Thank you, Alex.
I'm en accord. A certain amount of grammatical comparison can be so helpful.
We learn, from experience, that direct, word by word translations are useless & lead us often to absurd errors.
But astute analysis of grammatical constructions, in the two languages, can indeed be so helpful, dont cette vidéo est un bon exemple (whew!).
Merci, chef!
I love this video
Thanks a lot, this is the best on learning French, my native language is spanish and i used spanish to learn english, thanks a lot again
Thanks!
Merci Lynda !
So basically in french you HAVE to have a word linking independent clauses (been really studying these and each day I have more lightbulbs)
You put it better grammatically than I could! Yes I think so.
this is super helpful my thought process when thinking in french is to find links with the english language. This really helped me sort things out!
Kindred spirits!
The best video (for an English speaker) about French relative pronouns that Iâd seen. Bravo
cette vidéo est superb pour ceux qui cherchant de cette truque. Thank you and I will check if you did the other video
Pas encore ! BientĂŽt
A good topic. It can trip me up, too . Un thĂšme linguistique dont on parle trop peu! Bravo : )
Super! Câest gĂ©nial videos. Jâaime votre chaĂźne. Merci đ.
Merci beaucoup !
Votre chaĂźne*
@@FrenchinPlainSight Merci pour la correctionđđŒđ.
Congratulation, Alex! As a former teacher of English "je suis tout Ă fait d'accord" as to translating when necessary and helpful. Apart from that: great job taking your students from step 1 to step 4. Carry on!
I feel lucky that my mother tongue is Ukrainian, end we rather had to struggle with English prepositions that had to be put at the end of the sentence than with French variant of the things :) That makes studying different languages more interesting :)
Using English logic is very helpful for me . Merci.
You are welcome Sally!
This was really good Alex. I love the way you relate things to English when you can to make it easier to understand. This really helps me. Thank you!
You're so welcome!
Une vidéo fantastique, j'adore la façon dont vous avez expliqué les rÚgles prépositionnelles selon l'anglais plus formel, que je préfÚre. "Of course Madame, is this the gentlemen of whom you are remembering?" Tellement jolie.
thanks for your excellent videos mate. wish I had found you earlier. This has really cleared up a lot of confusion for me, especially with the dreaded preposition 'dont'. Thanks for the good work! Keep it up!
I'm very happy to read that Sebastian. Good to have you here!
"Dont" is actually a pronominal adverb and not a preposition though.
if only gcse and a-level french students knew about this channel, more of us would actually be able to speak better french at the end on the 5 yrs
Haha. I did GCSE French and scraped a B somehow. Then French came back into my life organically when I was 27. :D
bonjour, merci de m'aider c'est tres bonne pour me apprends des nouvelles phrases en francais. Je suis de angleterre aussi. "sur lequel" c'est tres utile. - and sorry for how many mistakes i know i probably made! :)
This is so interesting and has really made sense. My mum spoke English as a second language and always corrected us when we ended our sentences with a preposition. It set her teeth on edge. Now I really understand why. This video ties in so well with that so between you and my late maman, I feel now I might make more progress.
So happy to have given you a "déclic" moment in your French, Nicole.
This is an excellent video lesson. One addition which may have helped is a graphic showing the 4 parts and checking them off as you go. Merci.
That's true! I was so tired from the edit that I couldn't add any more haha.
I am a 'lapsed' French speaker/student and I really appreciate your explanations. They just make a lot of sense to me. Thanks so much!
Thanks that means so much. Before I put stuff on CZcams I thought it was just me in the world who loved to geek out on French. I've found my people. Thanks for being here Brent.
I think I found this video just at the right time to transform/advance my French. I am certainly going to play this a few times and think more about escaping the basic sentence structure I have been using to date.
Glad to hear it's useful. Rewatching is definitely a good tactic. There's no way our brains can retain all this technical information first or even the 5th time.
Here it's me the Frenchmen that has lived very little in France. You should try this fraise with your French girl friend when you're ready to go somewhere. " Alons y, frapon la route!" See what happens. I first heard this in Canada Montreal from and English co worker. Lots of Love J'apresi vos effort car c'est une bonne praticque pour moi a vous entendre parler.
Excellent. Youâre pretty damn smart!
Alex, thank you for this more advanced topic. To be honest, I think subconsciously I restructure my French sentences to avoid lequel and dont, and I shouldnât. I shall make it a goal to be more aware of these sentence structures and use them to make my French sound even more natural. Itâs one of the more difficult topics, but you explained it wonderfully. Keep up the great work!
Restructuring is a great skill to have because it keeps things moving along. But little by little, do exactly as you plan: make a goal to work specifically on things to want to improve. Happy to have sparked a new idea Curtis :)
Aha at last I understand the use of lequel - thank you
Congrats! You mastered a subtle thing in French that even native speakers can struggle with. Several of my co-workers get "la chose dont je t'ai parlé" wrong, and come up with "la chose que je t'ai parlé". You can be very proud of yourself!
So true! Same with "avoir besoin de". I hear "avoir besoin que" from time to time!
@@FrenchinPlainSight Hum, it depends in that case. "J"aurais besoin que tu viennes" is perfectly correct (I'd need you to come over). You can't use "de" here for instance.
@@FrenchinPlainSight
Ah oui mais attention !
J'ai besoin DE toi.
Mais :
J'ai besoin QUE tu sois lĂ . đ
(sinon c'est pas rigolo đ.)
In french, the word "snack" means "snack bar". To talk about the food you eat between regular meals, use the word "en-cas", to talk about any light, hasty, unelaborated meal use the word "casse-croute"
To complete what you said (and make it uselessly complexe), after a "locution prépositive", "duquelle/ de laquelle/ desquels/ desquelles" is mandatory instead of "dont"
Ăa se dit, "snack", notamment pour parler de la junk-food vendue dans les distributeurs.
"Un p'tit snack" dans ma tĂȘte ça peut reprĂ©senter un paquet de chips ou une barre de cĂ©rĂ©ales.
@@TheZmusicGroup
Oui mais Cmolodiets a raison, on utiliserait pas snack pour une glace...
En-cas, collation, goûter, douceur... En fonction du contexte.
"La table sur laquelle j'ai mis la tasse" is the correct one->
1/The action of "mettre" is done by me on "tasse" (COD), so the genre and number of "table" have no influence on the past participle of "mettre".
2/The verb "mettre" use the "avoir" auxiliary, and the thing being put on the table ("tasse" here) is after the verb "mettre" so it does not matter if it is masculine/feminine or singular/plural, it will always be "j'ai mis".
Some examples, when COD is before vs after the past participle:
La table sur laquelle j'ai mis la tarte / La tarte que j'ai misE sur la table
As-tu mis les tartelettes sur la table ? / Je les ai déjà misES au four!
La table sur laquelle j'ai posĂ© la tasse / Les tasses que j'ai posĂES sur la table
Yeah French can be pretty ridiculous sometimes....
Amazingly detailed and clear. Thank you! I'm going to have to process this :)
@@FrenchinPlainSight I sincerely apologies KOKI...seems like I need both French and English Lessons. I have since removed my stupid comment.
@@FrenchinPlainSight it is a crazy rule that has been made totally out of scratch, artificially, just to complicate things on purpose (!) back in the days... There is no real logical reason for this rule and it is actually maybe the less applied rule ever. Orally it is often forgotten except for common verbs like faire and mettre. This rule has always been more or less contested/known and its application has been difficult in history.
Basically, past participles never agree when the auxilliary is "avoir", except when the direct object of the verb (not the subject) is located before "avoir". In this case, the past participle agrees with the direct object.
J'ai mangé une pomme // Je l'ai mangée
La table sur laquelle j'ai mis la tasse // la table sur laquelle je l'ai mise
Hier j'ai mangé une pomme // c'est la pomme que j'ai mangée hier
Let's see if this rule holds the course of the centuries... Well actually, we already have the answer. Most of the time, the past participle agreement with the direct object drops, in non institutional language and writtings. Because this rule has never been natural or internalised by people, it is just an artificial rule that one has to learn by heart if they don't want to be punished/marginalised by the teacher. The only aim of this rule (grammatically useless) is to get good grades to pupils who can learn it and let the other ones apart (social shame). It's often funny when you hear people saying a sentence withou making the agreement, then process it mentally, realise their mistake and then suddenly you see the fear in their eyes XD just as if they remembered their childhood and the promise of a social disgrace of they didn't know the rule XD
I'm.doing the rounds again. Was here 2y ago, in between and now back again. I thinks that's a positive :D
Yesss! I get level 1 now! LOL and WHY don't books tell you to memorize the propositions with the verbs?? I stayed till the end!! Gotta memorize those prepositions!
This makes my heart happy. I guess because you can have different forms without the prepositions depending on what follows. E.g. se souvenir que if following it by a subject. Je me souviens que tu travailles dans une Ă©cole.
Very good video, but at 12:45 you mention "La table sur laquelle j'ai misE la tasse"
You must not agree the past participle here as the direct object is after it, kind of a really stange French rule but yeah, only mistake I spotted
"La table sur laquelle j'ai mis la tasse".
"La table sur laquelle je l'ai mise".
Au passé composé, on n'accorde pas le participe passé si on emploie l'auxiliaire avoir, sauf si le COD (complément d'objet direct) est placé avant le verbe. (l' dans le second exemple).
(Sorry to explain that in French instead of English)
Thanks for the videođ
Yes would love to have video on auquel, auxquelles etc.
Also how do we translate this:
Who was the person with/to whom you were talking to?
My guess:
C'est qui la personne Ă /avec qui tu parlais ? OR
C'est que la personne Ă /avec qui tu parlais ?
C'est noté. Merci.
"C'est qui la personne..." est correcte car la réponse est une personne.
Your lessons are a huge help for English speakers learning French! Can't thank you enough!
19:44 RemĂ©morer follows the same structure as to Remember and means about the same thing but not quite. It's not a very common verb in French and it implies that you are thinking about, maybe "living again" something. You can "remĂ©morer les vacances passĂ©es" but you can't really "remĂ©morer oĂč j'ai mis mes clefs" (unless you are really remembering the moment where you placed your keys and want to insist on that)
I've actually noticed a few times that French often has an interesting similarity to starchy old English, for example the musical Notre Dame de Paris has a song with the line "la couleur de ma peau contre celle de ta peau" which translates literally as "the colour of my skin against that of your skin", which is a perfectly valid English sentence, but "that of" is very old fashioned now, we would probably just say "against yours"
omg thank you so much for this, I am brazilian so whenever I tried to learn how to use DONT through portuguese I could never understand, but through english it was easier (did I make any mistake in this sentece?)
That's funny! At least one of your languages helped you. Great stuff.
Woo! Perfect timing. Just this weekend I had some conversation practice with another French learner, and we came across some confusion when I tried to say "You know that Netflix series I told you about." We both knew I was saying it wrong in French but didn't even know where to start trying to find a grammar lesson related to this. Thank you, Alex. I really like how you structure these language learning videos, breaking it down into 4 levels. Appreciate your time and teaching!
Is that the definition of serendipity? Yea. So many times I've got stuck halfway through!!
Thanks for taking the time to write this comment Layne. Often I don't know what's appreciated and what people can take or leave, so all feedback is worth your time!
Bon français !
@@FrenchinPlainSight Definitely serendipity! I'll keep the feedback coming then!
It occurred to me that when listening to "Je vous ai dit" it would almost sound like "Je vous aide". I'm learning to listen and it's difficult.
@@markhathaway9456 Hello Mark. Ah. On actual fact "aide" sounds more like "ed". Ai dit is more "ay dee". Hope you can start to hear the difference!
@@FrenchinPlainSight Don'tcha just love the consistency of French? /s
Bonjour, trĂšs bonne vidĂ©o. I want to answer the issue with the past participle. La table sur laquelle jâai MIS la tasse. And not MISE. The rule for the participle has to do with the direct object. Here the direct object LA TASSE is located AFTER the participle so there is no gender association. The rule is: Jâai mis QUOI? la tasse which is located after the participle, so no gender agreement. But we would have had gender agreement for: La tasse que jâai MISE sur la table. Jâai mis QUOI? La tasse which is located BEFORE the participle, so ther is gender agreement. Hope it helps. Salutations from QuĂ©bec!
"La table que j'ai mis la tasse dessus" would work too, for me anyways as a French Canadian.
At 12'49" it cannot be "mise", but "mis", because "la tasse" is AFTER the verb "AVOIR". It's an important rule.
With the verb AVOIR the participe passé of the second verb is invariable if the complément d'objet direct (COD)is after the verb avoir. If before, this participe passé must be "accordé" (put in féminin if the COD if feminine). Said like that it's tricky, but look
J'ai posé la tasse - La tasse que j'ai posée. La table sur laquelle j'ai mis la tasse - La tasse que j'ai mise sur la table. (mis, mise second verb au participe passé - ai verb avoir - la tasse COD). Many french make mistakes with that but it's ugly french - sounds weird.
This comment is rather late but I just discovered your channel and didn't see any comment about "mis" or "mise" from your "la table sur laquelle j'ai mis la tasse"
In this case you can't say "mise" because the auxialiary verb is avoir, and unless the object (in this case "la tasse") is BEFORE the verb, then it doesn't match the gender of the word.
However, if you have already mentionned the mug in the context before, then you can replace "la tasse" with "la", thus putting the object before the verb. Thus changing "mis" to "mise" and the sentence to:
"La table sur laquelle je l'ai mise"
Using "lequel" for people is normal in regular French. Using "qui" is preferred in what we call "langue soignée".
Exactement
For "the film i'm talking about", you could also say "le film Ă propos duquel je parle"... but if you have already mastered the "dont", then you'd better stay with it... even french people will rarely use such that structure...
I recall learning English sentences should not end with a preposition either, though it is commonly accepted. ex. "
'The person with whom I spoke,' instead of, 'The person I spoke with.'
23:22 That is avoided because ambiguous. The matching of the times is also off
If you want to say that at least some of them were not serious, you would rather say:
Les erreurs dont je me suis rendu compte n'Ă©taient pas toutes graves
If you want to say that none of them were serious:
Aucune des erreurs dont je me suis rendu compte n'Ă©tait grave. (n'Ă©tait and not n'Ă©taient because aucune is singular and considered the subject. You have to use "aucune" and not "aucunes" because "aucuns" and "aucunes" are only used with a noun that is always plural or a noun for which the singular form has a different meaning than the plural form. Aucun etc is a bit though grammatically)
I need more practice using âdontâ! But Iâm not sure how to get it!
You're not supposed to end English sentence with prepositions either. It's something I consciously try to do more often and it actually makes my English sound really good, albeit way too formal - haha.
So, yeah - 'the table on which I put the mug' is better English. If I was writing an essay, this is how I would write it. So, really spoken French is just like reading out loud my thesis in English. Modern spoken English can be nice and simple sounding, but we elide so many syntactically necessary words (for maximal recipience) that it is not only (probably) hard to study from the outside looking in (on a 'deep syntactic level'), but also pretty vague and ambiguous, which is why French is the superior language in my opinion (at least for verbal communication).
Very good sir, but Iâm not sure we can use the word « natives « anymore. Stp
Merci!...I now know a preposition is a word I shouldn't end a setence with....
I just got the joke ;)
@@FrenchinPlainSight The old ones are some of the best.
"A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with. - Winston S. Churchill"
12:40
Past participle agreements (welcome to hell)
"Je suis prise" if you're a woman
"J'ai pris la tasse" neutral because the auxiliary is "avoir"
"La tasse que j'ai prise" The agreement is with "la tasse" because it's placed before the verb
Even us French are struggling with this, you can often hear native speakers saying things like "l'erreur que j'ai fait" instead of "l'erreur que j'ai faite"
Et encore, il y a une subtilitĂ© pour le verbe faire đ:
la robe que tu tâes faite mais la robe que tu tâes fait coudre).đ„Ž
Of the obligation not to end a sentence with a preposition Winston Churchill said « that is a rule up with which I cannot put. »
Sorry if this is a silly question, but can âdontâ be replaced by âque jâen ...â ?
Le film que jâen parle
Le snack que jâen envie est une glace
Les vacances que je mâen souviens... etc ?
It's not a silly question. You're learning French!
Simple answer, nope.
French in Plain Sight Jâaime bien simple ! Merci
De rien
I can think of an example where a french speaker ends a question with a preposition...when you pay at the till in a shop, the cashier may ask "un ticket de caisse avec?"
Indeed. But, since I made this video I learned that here, "avec" isn't fulfilling the role of preposition. It's an adverb. Frustrating and satisfying at the same time. www.wordreference.com/fren/avec See the last definition in the top part :)
â@@FrenchinPlainSightâ â€Thank you Alex! I was struggling to figure out what was happening with 'avec'....I imagined that my example sentence, as a repeated and familar question had stylised from something like 'Voudriez-vous un ticket de caisse avec ça?', and had been reduced, omitting subject, verb etc., relying on context instead. It makes me wonder if this sentence will reduce further over time...in a couple of years, the cashier will just ask 'Avec?'
@@baimingrui haha. Who knows. Humans search the path of least resistance in everything!
12:48 , no, it would not be "j'ai mise"... let me try to explain in english (but be assured that your french is much better than my english). In french, in the "passĂ© composĂ©", we have two "auxiliaire" verbs, ĂȘtre (be) and avoir (have) and a a verb which is in a form called "participe passĂ©". When "ĂȘtre" is used, then we have to adapt the "participe passĂ©" verb to the subject. If you are a man you will say "je suis tombĂ©", and if you are a woman, you will say "je suis tombĂ©e"... With "avoir" we usually do not adapt the "participe passĂ©", except in one case which may looks like your exemple, but it's not... The only case where we are supposed to adapt the "participe passĂ©" (because ofter we don't do it at all) is when the C.O.D is before the verb... If you don't know what a C.O.D (complĂ©ment d'objet direct) is, it's the object of the action... So, when you say "la table sur laquelle j'ai mis la tasse", the C.O.D of the verb "mettre" is not the table, it's the cup... and it's not positionned before the verb. However, if you were talking about "the cup that I put on the table", then you would have the C.O.D positionned before the verb, and you would have to say "la tasse que j'ai mise sur la table".
Hope i was clear and that it will help you.
La table sur laquelle j'ai mis la tasse... Jamais mise after le verb avoir... đ it's always invariable.
Wrong : la tasse que j'ai mise sur la table (because "la tasse" is before the verb)
When a COD is infront a verb, the verb even when conjugated with avoir has to conform with the gender of the COD. So it's j'ai mise to reference to la table.
I'm terrible in grammar, but if I'm the one doing the action, isn't the agreement with my gender? J'ai mise because I'm female and j'ai mis if you're male?
@@ShowandTellknitting ;;;;;;love your logic but it doesn't work like that in french, well, works with "to be" ; je suis blond or je suis blonde wether you're a he or a she but with "to have" , there's no agreement.... except with the COD (the what question) if it's placed before the verb....sorry Matcradle, the COD is the mug not the table, well they're both feminine anyway !! sooooo, tu as pris toutes les pommes....toutes les pommes que tu as prises....j'ai mis la tasse...la tasse que j'ai mise (sur la table is irrelevant) even the french grapple with this one ! to be agree with the who, to have agree with the what only if the what is in front of the verb :)
@@sylviemanson9761 Thanks for that explanation. Ooooo, to have all of that just roll off my tongue without having to think about it! Even if I lived in France for the rest of my life, I don't think that would become natural...but then again, you never know.
if you find yourself getting this sentences wrong because of the habit and realising it at the end, just clear your throat and start over.
correcting yourself doesn't make you look dumb and it helps getting the right sentence as "muscle memory"
Hi Alex. Have you noticed that younger French speakers often use âavecâ at the end of a sentence? Iâm trying to think of a good example, but of course I canât, so I will make one up đ: âJâai achetĂ© cette robe and ces talons qui vont avec.â Is this considered acceptable familiar language? Thank you!!
Yes definitely! I hadn't noticed it was a younger persons' thing. I had assumed it was breaking the rule rather than be an exception though.
Well spotted Connie! Are you in France?
@@FrenchinPlainSight No - I am an American, here in California. I decided to re-learn French after having taken it in college many years ago. For the last few years, I have been watching lots and lots of French CZcams videos and noticed that several of the CZcamsrs (all 30ish French women) use âavecâ at the end of sentences. Thank you for your response! I love your channel because you answer many of the questions I have had from an English speakerâs perspective. đđ»
@@FrenchinPlainSight Native french speaker here (Hi from Toulouse ). It's not a young people thing. "Avec" can be used both as an adverb and a preposition. In this example, avec is used as an adverb. In "J'ai dansé avec Marie", it's a preposition.
There are other words that are both adverbs and prepositions, like 'avant' and 'aprĂšs'.
But often, preposition have different words as corresponding adverbs: 'sur'->'dessus', 'sous'->'dessous', 'dans'->'dedans'.
To illustrate: 'J'ai acheté cette table et ce vase qui va dessus'. Here 'dessus' is the adverb used to replace 'sur la table'.
In the first example, 'avec (adverb)' replace 'avec(preposition) la robe'.
In English, you'd use 'it' to finish the sentence: the heels that go with it, the vase that go above it. Just like "above it" can translate to "dessus" or "sur lui/elle/eux/elles", "with it" can translate to "avec" (adverb) or "avec lui/elle/eux/elles" (preposition). It's more natural to use the adverb form.
Hope this helps.
@@Sanglyon such a fantastic comment. So clear but also friendly. Thanks a lot on behalf of the community!
@@Sanglyon Thank you so much!
Salut, Iâve been told by a French person that the word nourriture is rarely if at all used in France. Rather they use la bouffe. Whatâs your thoughts on this ? Merci
I would say that it depends on the demographic: the age in particular. Indeed loads of people say la bouffe, but I imagine that certain older people don't. But I'm not French so I can't say for sure (no one can but a French person has more "data" to work with)
@@FrenchinPlainSight Thanks Alex, Iâm grateful for your thoughts. Your channel â chaĂźne â is so useful and you make the complex simple. Thanks for sharing your talents with us.
@@avac6332 Well actually, bouffe is a colloquial word, you can't use it in a formal situation. Use "nourriture" if you're not sure of the situation. I'ts a totally normal word. But yes bouffe is very very very common in unformal situations (friends and family). Maybe instead of nourriture we would go for "un repas" (meal) or "un plat" (course, dish?) when talking about something prepared/cooked. Everyone brougth his own food = chacun a amené sa propre nourriture/son propre plat/son propre repas. We could also say "quelque chose à manger" (something to eat): for a potluck "chacun amÚne quelque chose à manger". "Chacun amÚne sa bouffe" would be for close friends and family, if the atmosphere is very chill at work, maybe you could use it, but I wouldn't ^^
Ava C :
La bouffe is really part of colloquial language. Only use it with friends and family. đ
i wan't to correct something, "lequel" is not only for objects, you can use it for peoples too as "wich one", if you ask "c'est lequel ton professeur de math ?"/"wich one is your math teacher ?" your interlocutor will answer by showing you an saying "c'est lui"/"it's him" but if you ask "c'est qui ton professeur de math ?"/"who is your math teacher" then you'll be answered by the name of the teacher
Hi I'm french. I love your videos. Ask me if you need help. I'm a writer
The "ends with a preposition" sentences are pure German (Saxon) - separable verbs. Even more like NORWEGIAN đłđŽ!