a few french grammar questions

Hey just a few grammar questions that have come up in an essay i'm trying to get done for tomorrow, if anyone could help me out it would be much appreciated!!

1) would 'il ne suggère jamais que' take subjunctive?

2) when making a list of past actions is it okay to just use the past participle, i.e 'il a joué au foot, marqué un but et perdu son sac.' ?

3) How to form the construction 'someone who having just done something would not do something else' i.e 'the boy who having just spent all his money on sweets would not share them out'

I'm pretty sure this would use venir de + infinitive but i'm unsure of how to conjugate the venir so it means 'having just'. :confused:

Reply 1

jonzza

OP

wesetters

1) No.
2) Yeah, looks fine to me
3) le garçon, après avoir dépensé tout son argent sur des bonbons, refusait de les partager.

Thanks very much! Duh, should have thought of après avoir! :redface:

Reply 2

generalebriety

16

wesetters

1) No.
2) Yeah, looks fine to me
3) le garçon, après avoir dépensé tout son argent sur des bonbons, refusait de les partager.

Sur?

Alternative for the last sentence: le garçon, qui était venu de dépenser...

Reply 3

dans

12

See I thought the last sentence went:

le garcon, ce qui vient de depenser....

Reply 4

quintsy

17

dans

See I thought the last sentence went:

le garcon, ce qui vient de depenser....

I'd say le garçon, qui venait de dépenser.. in that case.

Reply 5

kellywood_5

17

I quite like apres avoir myself, but venir de would work too. I'd personally say le garcon qui vient de, but I wouldn't trust my judgement above others in this thread!

Reply 6

dans

12

^^ I'm with you on this on Kelly - but I put in 'ce' qui - opps

Reply 7

jonzza

OP

cheers for the replies, I think i'm going to stick with apres avoir because i'm more comfortable with it but I really should learn how to use venir de!

I've got another question though if anyone cares to help out, I don't really understand the use of cela and ceci and I think a sentence i'm trying to formulate requires one or the other.

'The boy has eaten all the sweets by himself. His mum realises this and makes him eat a dinner of vegetables.'
(btw I don't actually want to say that just using it as an example :p:

)

Now what i'm unsure of is how to translate the 'his mum realises this'. Babelfish says to use ceci but I don't trust it enough to put in an essay!

Reply 8

generalebriety

16

jonzza

cheers for the replies, I think i'm going to stick with apres avoir because i'm more comfortable with it but I really should learn how to use venir de!

I've got another question though if anyone cares to help out, I don't really understand the use of cela and ceci and I think a sentence i'm trying to formulate requires one or the other.

'The boy has eaten all the sweets by himself. His mum realises this and makes him eat a dinner of vegetables.'
(btw I don't actually want to say that just using it as an example :p:

)

Now what i'm unsure of is how to translate the 'his mum realises this'. Babelfish says to use ceci but I don't trust it enough to put in an essay!

Sa mère s'en rend compte. To realise = se rendre compte de, and de + 'it'/'this'/'that' is written as "en".

In an essay, cela is the one to use, unless it's y (à + 'it') or en (de + 'it'). Ceci is rare anyway - in fact, if you can avoid it, you shouldn't even use cela in an essay, but if you absolutely must (and I admit I use it in most of my essays), use cela, not ceci. The difference, though, is the difference between "là" and "ici" (cela and ceci still retain those elements, as do the pronouns celui-là and celui-ci and various other things) - là is more general and more common, ici is much more specific, and in almost all cases you can replace ici by là (but not vice-versa). Actually, in case you didn't know / are interested, ça is a shortening of cela.

Ramble over. Use cela. :p:

(Edit: oh, and to stress the "this" in your example sentence, although this again is rare, you could say sa mère se rend compte de cela.)

Venir de: to say "I have just (done)...", you use "je viens de + infinitive". Literally, "I come from (doing)...". So:
- Je viens de finir mes devoirs, et maintenant je vais jouer au foot.
- Comme je venais de finir (I had just finished) mes devoirs, je suis allé jouer au foot.

Reply 9

jonzza

OP

Aaahhh excellent explanation sir you made it much clearer than my textbook, ever considered writing one?! :p:

Reply 10

generalebriety

16

jonzza

Aaahhh excellent explanation sir you made it much clearer than my textbook, ever considered writing one?! :p:

Oh yes, many times, I have that much time on my hands... :wink:

Reply 11

tariel

I know this probably won't make much difference, but try if you have any 'orthographic' problems, especially if you're doing french at college or uni, try getting your hands on the Larousse Guide de poche Orthographe. It's fantastic, and lays out many of the problems even native speakers come across. (like, les grandmeres s'est lave les dents - you do not agree the 'se laver' because it does not agree with the 'grandmeres' - strange, but true! I think it's in the book somewhere - using 'venir de / avoir +participe' would be in there too!)
It's only 6.60 euros, and if you have an Amazon.co.uk account, you can sign in through the same one at Amazon.fr, and they send it to your doorstep as well! (from france; it takes about a week or so, and the free delivery over a certain price is available too!)

Guide de poche Orthographe
ISBN-10: 203533201X

Reply 12

generalebriety

16

tariel

I know this probably won't make much difference, but try if you have any 'orthographic' problems, especially if you're doing french at college or uni, try getting your hands on the Larousse Guide de poche Orthographe. It's fantastic, and lays out many of the problems even native speakers come across. (like, les grandmeres s'est lave les dents - you do not agree the 'se laver' because it does not agree with the 'grandmeres' - strange, but true! I think it's in the book somewhere - using 'venir de / avoir +participe' would be in there too!)

Interesting recommendation, considering it should be les grands-mères se sont lavé les dents. :p:

I'm being pedantic, it sounds like a book I might get myself. :p:

a few french grammar questions

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