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On and nous used for we/us close together | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Spinchäeb Ape Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4280 days ago 146 posts - 180 votes  Speaks: English*, German | Message 1 of 11 23 January 2013 at 4:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Here's some dialogue from the French-Canadian movie Incendies.
I was surprised to see that he used "on" for "we" in the first sentence and then in the very next one, he used "nous." Wouldn't he have picked one form and gone with it? It was a formal context, so I wasn't surprised he used "vous." However, isn't "nous" the more proper, more stilted way to say "we/us" while "on" is the conversational one? In this situation, why wouldn't he say "nous recherchons" instead of "on cherche" especially since he uses nous in the very next sentence? (Crossin' my fingers this goes through instead of crashing like it did before.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Spiderkat Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5622 days ago 175 posts - 248 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 11 23 January 2013 at 6:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I would say that in the first sentence they are not talking about them as the only people searching for the kid. While in the second sentence it implies the help they could get directly for them and not for anybody else.
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| agantik Triglot Senior Member France Joined 4445 days ago 217 posts - 335 votes Speaks: French*, English, Italian Studies: German, Norwegian | Message 3 of 11 23 January 2013 at 7:31am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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In the first sentence ON is the subject of the verb "cherche" whereas in the second sentence NOUS is the
object of the verb "aider". What I'm driving at is that "nous" can function both as subject or object whereas "on" is a subject form and therefore has to be replaced by "nous" for the other positions in the sentence, whether the context is formal or informal. I hope my explanation was clear enough, grammar is indeed a hobby of mine! :) 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5576 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 11 23 January 2013 at 10:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Just yesterday I read a similar example
Of course I understand it but my ... German conventionalism wants to have the article pauvre and the possesive pronoun agree with the subject. Edited by Bao on 23 January 2013 at 10:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4449 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 5 of 11 23 January 2013 at 11:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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In everyday spoken French, people will use "on" instead of "nous" as a subject meaning "we" 90 percent of the time. This tendency has been so strong that it is now also quite normal to see it in written texts like in Bao's example. So you can say that "on" has simply become the unstressed first person plural pronoun (in parallel to moi/je, toi/tu). However, "on" will take 3rd person singular formm of the verb. You can hear and see sentences like: "Nous, on ne va pas au cinéma ce soir." - We, we are not going to the cinema tonight.
My guess is that in the example "on est même si pauvres...", the plural form of the adjective is chosen precisely to show that it is "on" in the meaning of "nous", and not in the meaning of "one, someone". However, gramatically I agree that it looks strange. Edit: Thanks for pointing out the silly typo agantik, fixed now. Edited by Ogrim on 23 January 2013 at 4:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| agantik Triglot Senior Member France Joined 4445 days ago 217 posts - 335 votes Speaks: French*, English, Italian Studies: German, Norwegian | Message 6 of 11 23 January 2013 at 12:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Just correcting a typo in what you wrote :
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 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5342 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 11 23 January 2013 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Note that if you use vous to address a single person, you use a singular adjective. Here's an example I just found with Google:
Similar rules apply to on:
And agantik is correct above—the nous in Pouvez-vous nous aider ? is an object pronoun. On is strictly a subject pronoun. Edited by emk on 23 January 2013 at 3:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5191 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 8 of 11 23 January 2013 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Exactly. Subject "nous" will only be used in very formal situations (the required level of formality being even higher in Québec, but it's unclear whether the sentence you are quoting was uttered by a Québécois or a European speaker (or even a Maghreb French speaker?) since this is an international film). Nous is however used as a direct/indirect pronoun (il nous parle, il nous voit), or a strong pronoun (either alone [Nous, on le sait] or after a preposition [il parle de nous]). On is strictly used as the direct subject of a verb (on travaille). However, in the case of reflexive or reciprocal phrases, we use se: on se regarde - we are looking at each other on se brosse les dents - we are brushing our teeth If you use nous, then on gets the meaning of "one" or "people": on nous regarde - people are looking at us Edited by Arekkusu on 23 January 2013 at 3:47pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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