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French Grammar – How to Be Negative Posted by on Nov 6, 2009 in Grammar

I was once an aupair for some French-speaking kids and so, in homage to them, I will give some examples of what kids might say in French:

Je n’aime pas le brocoli.
Je ne veux plus jouer avec toi.
Ma maman ne me laisse jamais faire ce que je veux.
Ma maman ne m’achète rien quand on fait du shopping.
Je ne veux personne dans ma chambre !
Je ne vais pas encore à l’école.
Je ne veux ni dormir ni me reposer.
Je n‘ai qu’une petite glace !

Basically, to be negative in French, you just have to place ne before the conjugated verb and pas or another negative expression after that same verb.  In other words, you form a negative sandwich with the conjugated verb as the filling.

Some of the most common negative expressions include:

ne…pas not
ne…plus no longer
ne…jamais never
ne…rien nothing
ne…personne no one
ne…pas encore not yet
ne…ni…ni… neither…nor…
ne…que only

You can see from the above examples that ne…ni…ni and ne…que don’t follow the same pattern as the other expressions.  Instead of following the conjugated verb, ni and que are placed before the word they modify.

Most negative expressions in French are adverbs.  However, rien and personne are pronouns that can also be used as a subject or object in a sentence.  So, when used in these ways, rien and personne are placed in the normal subject or object position.  Ne is still placed directly before the verb.  Examples:

Rien ne se passe. (Nothing happens)
Personne ne joue avec moi. (Nobody plays with me).

Be careful!  Although you can’t make a double negative in English, you can in French.  Just make sure you place ne before the verb, omit pas when using other negative expressions in the same sentence and place the negative adverbs before the negative pronouns.  You might see something like this:
Personne ne fait jamais rien! (Nobody ever does anything!)

What negative sentences can you come up with?  Please share in a comment!

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Comments:

  1. Kari:

    “The negative sandwich” — such a simple yet brilliant concept! You’ve just helped me enormously, thank you.

  2. OLUTOKE DOTUN:

    Hi Chanda, it’s nice seeing you here. I am a Nigerian and I am passionate about learning French. Could you please help me? I need materials that would help me to know French – textbooks, dictionaries, Audios etc. I know you will be of great help to me.
    MY POSTAL ADDRESS IS LIFE OASIS INT’L CHURCH, P.O.BOX 1838, OSOGBO, OSUN STATE NIGERIA.
    Thanks in anticipation.

    Olutoke Dotun Matthew.

  3. Virginia:

    I always told my students to think of the negatives as an Oreo, with the negative words being the chocolate cookie and the verb being the creamy vanilla filling. It seems that we were on the same wave length.

  4. Chanda:

    Virginia,
    Your Oreo idea is great too! However, the sandwich worked better for me when teaching French to Spanish kids in Spain as Oreos are not very popular in Spain yet.

  5. Chanda:

    Ça me fait plaisir Kari de savoir que cet article vous ait été utile!