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French Reflexives | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4640 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 1 of 8 07 April 2012 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi everyone,
I'm having trouble with reflexives in French. I do not really understand when they are used, although I get the gist of how to use them for the most part? For example, I was working through Assimil today in New French With Ease, Lesson 36 to be exact, and I came across this exercise: "..et ils nous ont envoye un carnet de cheques" I understand why the nous is there and where to put it and all, I'm just having trouble figuring out when to use reflexives and why "ont" is in there. Is the "ont" being there one of those things that can't be explained and I just have to get used to? Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5536 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 8 07 April 2012 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||
This isn't actually a reflexive verb here. It's actually the passé composé (the modern past tense) of envoyer. The word "ont" is basically a helper verb, just like "have" in the English translation. So this gives us "ont envoyé", or "have sent". Except that you should normally translate it as just "sent". "Nous" is the indirect object, or the recipient of the action. ("Nous" can also be the direct object; you need to figure out which it is from context.) I hope this helps! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4640 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 3 of 8 07 April 2012 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes that clears it up a bit, thanks for the explanation emk!
But, I thought the reflexives were me, se, te, nous, vous? Or am I thinking of something different? And, are these "helper" verbs used quite a bit or only in certain situations? Because I would just say "et ils nous envoye un carnet de cheques" and it wouldn't even occur to me to throw "ont" in there. Is this something that becomes easier from your experience? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5603 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 4 of 8 07 April 2012 at 11:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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"et ils nous envoient un carnet de cheques" would be present: They are sending us a chequebook.
I cannot imagine very many situations, where one would use a reflexive verb "To send oneself", "s'envoyer" PS. I always though, check is something when you play chess and a word for control, but the paying paper is "cheque", isn't it? Edited by Cabaire on 07 April 2012 at 11:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4640 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 5 of 8 07 April 2012 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm sorry, I meant reflexive pronouns.
me, se, te, nous, vous. Not reflexive verbs. My bad. I am confused on when to use these in sentences. EDIT: Checkmate is used for Chess, and in America, we say check (bank checks) and I believe other English speaking countries use cheque. Edited by sillygoose1 on 07 April 2012 at 11:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5536 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 8 08 April 2012 at 12:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Me, te, nous and vous aren't always reflexive pronouns. They can also be direct object
and indirect object pronouns. Reflexive pronouns always agree with the the subject: je me rase, tu te rases, il se rase, nous nous rasons, vous vous rasez, ils se rasent. If you see "Ils nous", it can't be reflexive. If you've got an extra $6, you might want to grab a decent grammar book to supplement Assimil. This one is pretty reasonable: Essential French Grammar Don't bother trying to learn it by heart at this stage: It's OK to read through it quickly and use it as a reference. You'll internalize much of this by the end of the active wave. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4640 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 7 of 8 08 April 2012 at 12:31am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you very much for the assistance. I bookmarked that book and will buy it asap.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5385 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 8 of 8 08 April 2012 at 5:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Reflexive simply means that the subject and object of the verb point to the same person. A verb requiring
such a pattern will start with se in the infinitive. Such verbs in English will sometimes also be reflexive (to tell yourself, se dire) or will usually have no object (to wash, se laver). Apart from se, all other pronouns look the same whether they are reflexive or not. The nous you are speaking is not reflexive, it's simply an object pronoun. Here is what the basic structure of the sentence is: Ils ont envoyé un carnet de chèques à X If the X is nous, then that pronoun must move immediately before the conjugated verb, namely ont. Hence, ils nous ont.... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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