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Avoiding the French subjunctive | ||
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5770 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 1 of 4 24 June 2011 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Okay, so the subject bar didn't allow enough characters for me to post the whole
question - how we avoid the subjunctive in the imperfect and pluperfect tenses, both of which I think are literary? While writing a letter a few days ago, I came across a couple of problems regarding the subjunctive. I know that the subjunctive isn’t really used in certain tenses in French, so I was wondering what people usually do to avoid using it in certain tenses, particularly the imperfect and pluperfect. I think it’s okay and pretty common to use the subjunctive in the present and perfect tenses so that’s presumably not a problem. For example, how would you avoid the subjunctive in the following sentences: Although I used to study French when I was younger, I have forgotten a lot (of it). – Bien que j’étudiasse le français étant plus jeune, j’ai beaucoup oublié/ j’en ai beaucoup oublié. It was obvious that the money had been stolen – il était evident que l’argent eût été volé. I don’t think either of these sentences sound strange in English and I have found myself wanting to say the first one a fair bit lately, or something similar – but I know using the imperfect subjunctive there sounds ridiculous and is possibly just plain wrong – I even cringed writing it down. So how can we avoid using it? Does French break the rules of tenses and use some other tense to get around the problem? Some other grammatical construction or different conjunctions? Thank you/Merci beaucoup Jack 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 2 of 4 24 June 2011 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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In the first sentence, use "bien que j'aie étudié...".
In the second, it shouldn't be subjunctive. Edited by Arekkusu on 24 June 2011 at 7:51pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Spiderkat Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5816 days ago 175 posts - 248 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 4 24 June 2011 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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You can't avoid the use of a subjonctive tense when you write a sentence with one of those subjunctive phrases. So instead of using "bien que" which requires a subjonctive, you could write instead something like "malgré mon apprentissage du français....".
The conjunction "que" doesn't require automatically the use of a subjonctive. Although this is how a subjonctive tense is introduced in a sentence. Since the verb in the first part of the sentence is "imparfait" then the verb in the second part will be either "...eut été volé (passé antérieur)" or "avait été volé (plus-que-parfait)" depending on the context and writing style. eut été volé (passé antérieur) eût été volé (subj. plus-que-parfait) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5603 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 4 of 4 24 June 2011 at 11:03pm | IP Logged | ||
If there is no negation, use the indicative: Il est évident qu'il est là. If there is a negation, use the subjonctive: Il n'est pas évident qu'il soit là. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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