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French Subjunctive | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Michel1020 Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5022 days ago 365 posts - 559 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch | Message 9 of 16 27 July 2012 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | ||
As most natives, I think - I don't follow any grammar rules but my own ears. Probably when you say I think - je pense in a positive form there is no doubts about the following statement. When you put it in a negative form the doubt is obvious. J'espère que could be followed by either subjunctive or indicative. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5537 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 16 27 July 2012 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | ||
If you have a moment, could you please give an example of the subjunctive after "espère que"? I know native speakers who claim that it's basically impossible in modern French. Perhaps a sufficiently clever example would result in them saying, "Oh, yeah, of course you can use it there." Or perhaps their ear for grammar simply prohibits it. Either way, it would be an interesting experiment. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Spiderkat Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5817 days ago 175 posts - 248 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 11 of 16 28 July 2012 at 2:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Here's a an easy one using the subjonctive which doesn't sound odd to me at all "Vous espérez de moi que je fasse ceci en combien de temps exactement ?". On the contrary it sounds even better than the indicative.
Edited by Spiderkat on 28 July 2012 at 8:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Michel1020 Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5022 days ago 365 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch | Message 12 of 16 28 July 2012 at 10:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Subjunctive
J'espère qu'elle fasse le premier pas. J'espère qu'il vienne seul. J''espère qu'il finisse à temps. Indicative J'espère qu'elle fera le premier pas. J'espère qu'il viendra seul. J'espère qu'il finira à temps. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5476 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 13 of 16 28 July 2012 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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From french.about.com, heres what Laura's Subjunctivator tool says about this:
Espérer may require the subjunctive, depending on whether it is used affirmatively, negatively, or interrogatively: J'espère qu'il viendra. I hope he comes. (Note that in the affirmative, this verb is normally followed by the future, rather than the present tense.) Je n'espère pas qu'il vienne. I don't hope that he's coming. Espères-tu qu'il vienne ? Do you hope that he's coming? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6066 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 14 of 16 28 July 2012 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting thread.
Just a word to the wise: the verb "espérer" is a dangerous one for this purpose. Based on my experience, I'd say that its use with indicative means (most of the times) to expect something. When used with subjunctive, it tends to mean to hope for something. Of one thing I'm sure: depending on the meaning, most of the times it can be used with both tenses. This is based on some 12 years' intensive use of the language. I've started (unwittingly) more than a discussion among francophones on this subject. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5537 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 16 28 July 2012 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | ||
Yup, that's definitely the standard rule. But I've found it's worth running a Google search for "espèrer que subjonctif" on Google.fr for things like this, which generally gets you information aimed at native speakers. There's a great discussion on this page if you scroll down a bit. Apparently "espèrer" actually once had a meaning once closer to "attendre" (and still does in some dialects). So the usage of the indicative is probably a historical artifact. But as we see in this thread, not all native speakers have the same grammatical intuition. So it's fun to try to figure out what the pattern might be. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5435 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 16 of 16 09 August 2012 at 5:10am | IP Logged | ||
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When discussing the use of the subjunctive, there is a longstanding debate among French linguists whether this mood corresponds to a real nuance of meaning or whether it is simply a form correlated with certain verbs. So, for example, "il faut que" takes the subjunctive because a) the subjunctive goes with verbs of desire, constraint, etc, or b) "il faut que" simply requires the subjunctive.
I won't take sides in this debate, but I would like to point out a couple of things about the use of the subjunctive: 1. In the vast majority of the verbs of the first group or -er (e.g. parler, penser, etc), the subjunctive form differs phonetically and in spelling only in the nous and vous forms. For example, il faut que nous parlions il faut que vous pensiez Otherwise, in il faut que je parle there is no difference between the indicative and the subjunctive. One could easily say that for the majority of verb uses, i.e. the sum of all the uses of the various forms of all the verbs, there is probably no difference between the indicative and the subjunctive. It is true that the very common irregular verbs like aller, savoir, être, pouvoir, dire, faire, falloir and vouloir have very distinctive subjunctive forms. What I'm trying to say here is simply that in many cases there is no visible or audible difference between the indicative and the subjunctive. 2. Some of the distinctions are so arbitrary that one could believe that it is based solely on the choice of verb and not on any real distinction of meaning. Why for example is "Je ne crois pas qu'il vienne" considered correct and "Je ne pense pas qu'il vienne" incorrect? It would seem to be pure convention. 3. We know that "avant que" takes the subjunctive. However, all the grammar books will tell you that "après que" takes the indicative. But most people use the subjunctive because of the similarity with "avant que." Many newspapers get around this by using some exotic tense and write things like "il est après qu"il eut fini de parler" instead of the recommended "il est parti après qu'il a fini de parler." (The newspaper Le monde systematically uses the indicative passé composé.) 4. We should note that the subjunctive form is often identical to the imperative form. I don't want to get too technical here, but one could think that certain so-called subjunctives are actually imperatives. 5. Concerning the discussion of the subjunctive with espérer que, I would agree that although espérer que does not regularly take the subjunctive, I could see the argument for the use of espérer que as a synonym of attendre que. Such is the case in Québécois French. This reminds of me the use of "vouloir que" with the indicative. This might seem like heresy because "vouloir que" is probably the poster verb for the subjunctive. But look at the following example: Je veux bien qu'il est beau et riche mais je ne l'épouserai pas. This is something that could come straight out of Molière. Here the "je veux bien que" or even "je veux que" means "I will admit that" and not "I desire or wish that." I'll leave the discussion there because it's starting to get a bit long. All of this to say that the subjunctive can be a very complex beast, but in reality it's not that complicated and one can easily work around it. Edited by s_allard on 09 August 2012 at 5:09pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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