{"id":145,"date":"2009-11-06T06:39:38","date_gmt":"2009-11-06T10:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=142"},"modified":"2009-11-06T06:39:38","modified_gmt":"2009-11-06T10:39:38","slug":"french-grammar-how-to-be-negative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-grammar-how-to-be-negative\/","title":{"rendered":"French Grammar – How to Be Negative"},"content":{"rendered":"

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:<\/p>\n

Je n’<\/strong>aime pas<\/strong> le brocoli.
\nJe ne<\/strong> veux plus<\/strong> jouer avec toi.
\nMa maman ne<\/strong> me laisse jamais<\/strong> faire ce que je veux.
\nMa maman ne<\/strong> m’ach\u00e8te rien<\/strong> quand on fait du shopping.
\nJe ne<\/strong> veux personne <\/strong>dans ma chambre\u00a0!
\nJe ne<\/strong> vais pas encore<\/strong> \u00e0 l’\u00e9cole.
\nJe n<\/strong>e veux ni<\/strong> dormir ni<\/strong> me reposer.
\nJe n<\/strong>‘ai qu’<\/strong>une petite glace\u00a0!<\/em><\/p>\n

Basically, to be negative in French, you just have to place ne<\/em><\/strong> before the conjugated verb and pas<\/em><\/strong> or another negative expression after that same verb.\u00a0 In other words, you form a negative sandwich with the conjugated verb as the filling.<\/p>\n

Some of the most common negative expressions include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
ne…pas<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nnot<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ne…plus<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nno longer<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ne…jamais<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nnever<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ne…rien<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nnothing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ne…personne<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nno one<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ne…pas encore<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nnot yet<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ne…ni…ni…<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nneither…nor…<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ne…que<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nonly<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

You can see from the above examples that ne…ni…ni<\/em><\/strong> and ne…que<\/em><\/strong> don’t follow the same pattern as the other expressions.\u00a0 Instead of following the conjugated verb, ni <\/em><\/strong>and que<\/em><\/strong> are placed before the word they modify.<\/p>\n

Most negative expressions in French are adverbs.\u00a0 However, rien<\/em><\/strong> and personne <\/em><\/strong>are pronouns that can also be used as a subject or object in a sentence.\u00a0 So, when used in these ways, rien<\/em><\/strong> and personne<\/em><\/strong> are placed in the normal subject or object position.\u00a0 Ne<\/em><\/strong> is still placed directly before the verb.\u00a0 Examples:<\/p>\n

Rien ne<\/em><\/strong> se passe.<\/em> <\/em> (Nothing happens)
\nPersonne ne<\/em><\/strong> joue avec moi.<\/em> <\/em> (Nobody plays with me).<\/p>\n

Be careful!\u00a0 Although you can’t make a double negative in English, you can in French.\u00a0 Just make sure you place ne<\/em><\/strong> before the verb, omit pas<\/em><\/strong> when using other negative expressions in the same sentence and place the negative adverbs before the negative pronouns.\u00a0 You might see something like this:
\nPersonne ne fait jamais rien!<\/em> (Nobody ever does anything!)<\/p>\n

What negative sentences can you come up with?\u00a0 Please share in a comment!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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’ach\u00e8te rien…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[372,373],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","tag-french-negation","tag-french-negative-expressions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}