French Abstract Topics

Parawhore.xD

Maybe not the best place to post this but I'll try my luck...

I'm just wondering does the phrase : il n'est donc guère surprennant que... Take the subjunctive? I'm fairly certain it doesn't but I'm not 100%. If anyone knows for sure I would really appreciate it!

ray2012

Parawhore.xD wrote: »

Maybe not the best place to post this but I'll try my luck...

I'm just wondering does the phrase : il n'est donc guère surprennant que... Take the subjunctive? I'm fairly certain it doesn't but I'm not 100%. If anyone knows for sure I would really appreciate it!

According to this website, it does! http://french.about.com/od/grammar/qt/subjunctive_ilestsurprenant.htm

I would have thought it would have also, as it is an emotion of being surprised

Parawhore.xD

ray2012 wrote: »

According to this website, it does! http://french.about.com/od/grammar/qt/subjunctive_ilestsurprenant.htm

I would have thought it would have also, as it is an emotion of being surprised

That's brilliant thank you

Canard

This might not make a lot of sense, it's a bit hard to explain, but you can actually tell a lot if something will take the subjunctive by knowing variations of the phrase. Like you could say "Je veux y aller afin de faire quelque chose", thats afin de + infinitive. Que sort of forces a conjugation but because it's not something that's actually happened or happening at that moment it's subjunctive - so you could switch it to "afin qu'il fasse quelque chose".

Same deal with avant de/que, il faut/il faut que etc.

Our English construction of "I want <person> <infinitive>" is also a pretty certain way of triggering the French subjunctive. So if you said "I want him to go", that's "je veux qu'il aille", or "I want *her* *to see* her friend" would be je veux qu'elle voie son amie.

I don't know if that helps people with it at all but the realization was crazy for me, no one ever told me and it made it so much easier for me to know when to use it.

TheChosenOne

Canard wrote: »

This might not make a lot of sense, it's a bit hard to explain, but you can actually tell a lot if something will take the subjunctive by knowing variations of the phrase. Like you could say "Je veux y aller afin de faire quelque chose", thats afin de + infinitive. Que sort of forces a conjugation but because it's not something that's actually happened or happening at that moment it's subjunctive - so you could switch it to "afin qu'il fasse quelque chose".

So basically you kind of have to use the subjunctive after "que", is that what you're saying? So you can only use the infinitive in the first person, but 3rd person has to have a "que" + subjonctif? Sorry, I don't really get what you're saying, but I'm sure it'll be immensely helpful if I get it... Could you give another example of this please?

Parawhore.xD

TheChosenOne wrote: »

So basically you kind of have to use the subjunctive after "que", is that what you're saying? So you can only use the infinitive in the first person, but 3rd person has to have a "que" + subjonctif? Sorry, I don't really get what you're saying, but I'm sure it'll be immensely helpful if I get it... Could you give another example of this please?

The way I was taught it is that the subjunctive is used to express a sense of doubt or uncertainty.. Usually triggered by the use of a que phrase.

For example: I would like that he goes 'je voudrais qu'il aille.' I'd like it to happen BUT I don't know if it will.

Similarly je ne pense pas que or je ne crois pas que trigger it, I dont think or believe that x,y.z will happen or whatever but I can't be sure. Whereas je pense que or je crois que are normal because you are certain about what you're saying.

That make anymore sense to you? Sorry if it's not very clear this is just my rather limited understanding of the tense.

Canard

TheChosenOne wrote: »

So basically you kind of have to use the subjunctive after "que", is that what you're saying? So you can only use the infinitive in the first person, but 3rd person has to have a "que" + subjonctif? Sorry, I don't really get what you're saying, but I'm sure it'll be immensely helpful if I get it... Could you give another example of this please?

Well for the most part you'll never use the subjunctive without que, but it's not always there just because there is a que. I think my example was a bit confusing because of the il part, let me try again

Basically, a lot of phrases have a de after them. I suppose the most familiar could be avoir besoin de - to need. So you'd say "J'ai besoin d'aller" - I need to go. In this instance, it's all about the speaker. However, if someone else needs to go, you'd say "J'ai besoin que tu ailles". You could recognize that because necessity triggers the subjunctive (as in il faut que), but what's more obvious is the fact that the de has changed into a que.

This is like English - you'd say "I need to go", but "I need you to go". That idea of putting the person before the verb in English is used for the subjunctive in French. The lists of verbs that trigger the French subjunctive (vouloir que, aimer que, laisser que, permettre que) all follow that construction in English - "I want you to go" being je veux que tu ailles "I let him do it" being je laisse qu'il le fasse, etc.

Similarly to avoir besoin de, you might know the phrase avoir envie de, which is kind of like "to feel like something". J'ai envie de dire quelque chose would be I feel like saying something, but when you say "J'ai envie que", you use the subjunctive. (By the way, you only do that when you're changing it to something like I want YOU to say something.) So you might write J'ai envie que tu dises quelque chose. This could work in a diary entry if you wanted someone to say something to you, e.g. "I really like her, I want her to talk to me" could be "Je l'aime bien, je veux qu'elle me parle".

Does that clear it up at all? It's by no means crucial to doing well, I only realized this a few weeks ago and I did my LC last year, but if you get your around it it makes French a lot clearer.

TheChosenOne

Canard wrote: »

Well for the most part you'll never use the subjunctive without que, but it's not always there just because there is a que. I think my example was a bit confusing because of the il part, let me try again

Basically, a lot of phrases have a de after them. I suppose the most familiar could be avoir besoin de - to need. So you'd say "J'ai besoin d'aller" - I need to go. In this instance, it's all about the speaker. However, if someone else needs to go, you'd say "J'ai besoin que tu ailles". You could recognize that because necessity triggers the subjunctive (as in il faut que), but what's more obvious is the fact that the de has changed into a que.

This is like English - you'd say "I need to go", but "I need you to go". That idea of putting the person before the verb in English is used for the subjunctive in French. The lists of verbs that trigger the French subjunctive (vouloir que, aimer que, laisser que, permettre que) all follow that construction in English - "I want you to go" being je veux que tu ailles "I let him do it" being je laisse qu'il le fasse, etc.

Similarly to avoir besoin de, you might know the phrase avoir envie de, which is kind of like "to feel like something". J'ai envie de dire quelque chose would be I feel like saying something, but when you say "J'ai envie que", you use the subjunctive. (By the way, you only do that when you're changing it to something like I want YOU to say something.) So you might write J'ai envie que tu dises quelque chose. This could work in a diary entry if you wanted someone to say something to you, e.g. "I really like her, I want her to talk to me" could be "Je l'aime bien, je veux qu'elle me parle".

Does that clear it up at all? It's by no means crucial to doing well, I only realized this a few weeks ago and I did my LC last year, but if you get your around it it makes French a lot clearer.

It does actually clear things up, thanks. It's just I was confused by what you meant in the original example, but now I know what you're saying. I kind of used it myself without really knowing what exactly I'm doing. Like from reading in French I knew that this is how it's said, but didn't really understand the grammar of it. Thanks again

Canard

No problem, hope it makes the subjunctive somewhat less mysterious.

ScummyMan

Am I doing the same French paper as everyone else in here? :eek:

Fùck.

work.inprocess

Tommyrawr wrote: »

I'm going to focus on Drugs and Sport,Health,Danger of Technology,Obesity,Changing roles in society,Volunteering ,Immigration,The environment,Alcoholism. Hopefully that will have me covered, if not well not much I can do. I was looking at the examiners report for French in 2006 in my opinion standard of answer for the responsive questions to get near the top percentile is seriously high like as in college standard French (wouldn't expect it to be easy to get near the top but jeasus) it kind of scared me xD

Lol it's nowhere near that high, it's mostly about content, keep your answers short (not too short, the more you write the more mistakes you're likely to make but a good guide our teacher used to tell us was that she shouldn't have to turn the page on our answers in that LC book, which is about 20 lines) and to the point and you should be fine, don't bother learning off essays, the chances of getting the exact same one that you have learned off is next to impossible, the best way to go about it is to learn general phrases and topic specific phrases and vocab and you should be fine

11Charlie11

Man.UnitedLad wrote: »

Am I doing the same French paper as everyone else in here? :eek:

Fùck.

Thank god I'm not the only one!