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French: potential past future events | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4044 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 1 of 10 08 March 2015 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have been going through rules for the different tenses, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to express this in French.
I've had some help on Lang-8, but I'm unsure about it as you'll see in a moment. I'm hoping the grammar nerds here can help me out! Here's my sentence: Leur famille craignait le jour où elle, parce qu'il s'agissait absolument d'elle, aurait perçu, en passant, une étrange nuance subtile entre ces taches de beige et leur fond blanc. What I want to say is, roughly: "Their family feared the day when she, because it would have to be her, would notice, in passing, a subtle yet strange difference in shade between these spots of beige (actual physical spots of beige introduced moments earlier in the text) and their white background." The correction I've received is: "Leur famille craignait le jour où elle, parce qu'il s'agissait absolument d'elle, serait perçue au passage comme une étrange nuance subtile entre ces taches beiges et leur fond blanc." It appears to me as if though a passive voice has been introduced to replace my active one, the perceiver appears to have become the perceived, and a simile has been introduced. So, my questions: 1. What is the correct tense for expressing this (a potential future, from the point of view of the past, which might now also be in the past)? 2. Have I misunderstood the correction I've received? Edited by eyðimörk on 08 March 2015 at 6:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 4037 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 2 of 10 08 March 2015 at 6:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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In my opinion, the correction you have received has modified the meaning of the sentence.
If I understand the sentence well, it is the "she" which does the "would notice". I would rather say "leur famille (...) d'elle, percevrait, en passant, (...;)". The correction you have received means "would be noticed". I also think that the corrector who tried to help you misunderstood your sentence... BTW: as a native speaker, I didn't use any grammatical rule. I only used my feeling. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4235 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 3 of 10 08 March 2015 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I am no native Francophone, but "aurait perçu" is like a conditionnel composé (I do
not know the actual official term of what this is called), but this sentence in English is still confusing to me after reading it 4 to 5 times although I am a native Anglophone. If I understand correctly, the family (active) fear that she (active) is the one who notices (active) something (object). I am a bit confused on both the French and English on whether the family fear the day or her, or her on that day noticing, but if it is the last case, I think that the entire first clause needs to be modified in this case, to Leur famille craignait qu'elle, quand le jou arrrive et parce qu'il agissait absolument d'elle, perçoive [perçut] en passant, une étrange nuance subtile entre ces taches de beige et leur fond blanc. To me this sounds better in the subjonctif (like a true grammar friki I put the imparfait du subjonctif in the brackets), but the problem is that I am unclear on both the French as well English versions. I add that "aurait perçu" is like the "future of the past" as I remember how almost all of my Romance language grammar boosk explain this tense, it means that something "will have happened" in the past, but does not account for the ongoing future, just a certain point in the future and beforehand. It is like in English "I will have noticed" only refers to "by then", meaning "I already noticed, and there is no possibility of noticing in the future". Thus I would use "perçoive" here, although the poster above me recommends the imparfait du indicatif. My version is just the subjonctif version. Edited by 1e4e6 on 08 March 2015 at 11:30pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Michel1020 Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4962 days ago 365 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch | Message 4 of 10 09 March 2015 at 10:28am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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No time right now but there is a big mistake in this sentence - it is either.
Leur famille ... où elles... or Sa famille ...où elle... edit : unless elle is not a member of leur famille ? if so then it is correct but we need more context to know Edited by Michel1020 on 09 March 2015 at 10:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4044 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 5 of 10 09 March 2015 at 10:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I didn't post the entire context since I didn't want to make the forum into my personal Lang-8. Suffice to say, that's not the part I'm worried about right now. The main character is "woman", "woman" is married to "man", "woman and man's family" are worried about the day when "woman" does something. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4044 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 6 of 10 09 March 2015 at 11:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thank you! I'll dig into the conditional present and see if I can find some rule to support this. :) I thought he misunderstood it too, but this is the correction I got after I explained what I was going for in English. So, having already lost faith in my ability to produce comprehensible French, when the sentence was apparently so bad it needed a translation to be corrected in the first place, I started doubting everything. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4044 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 7 of 10 09 March 2015 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Their family fears that there may come a day (which is very likely, hence "they feared the day when" rather than "they worried that there might come a day when") when she does something, but that is not a specific day.
Thank you!
I think that guiguixx1 recommended the présent du conditionnel. I actually had the subjunctive originally, but that's because my original was "le jour qu'elle", but every single time I've written "le jour que" a native has corrected it to "le jour où". It's my most recurring error. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5326 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 8 of 10 09 March 2015 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think the correction was wrong. As others have said, the conditionnel présent is the right choice. Here is my suggestion:
Leur famille craignait le jour où elle, parce que ce ne pourrait être qu'elle, percevrait en passant une nuance subtile, bien qu'étrange, entre ces taches de beige et leur fond blanc. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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