Here’s a question for you …
what comes to your mind as the repository of knowledge on the Internet?
9/10 will respond: Wikipedia.
And yet the information available in ABOUT.COM is far superior to any I have seen on one site. The information on ‘About.com’ is very detailed and the chances that you will come away having absorbed the knowledge are substantially high.
Needless to say, ‘About.com’ is an extremely valuable resource for those who attempt to learn French (or for that matter any) language on their own. When I wanted to understand a bit more about ne … que a visit to the relevant page is all I needed.
The problem I had with ne … que is that it works exactly opposite to ne … pas, ne … plus, ne … jamais. While the other negations prevent you from doing something, ne … que allows you that one single thing follows it.
Thus, for example,
Je parle français = I speak French
Je ne parle pas français = I don’t speak French
Je ne parle plus français = I don’t speak French anymore
Je ne parle jamais français = I never speak French
but
Je ne parle que français = I speak only French
“So, what is so problematic with this,” I hear you say. The problem is not when you see it written. The problem is when you hear someone speak – as in a recorded speech. The “ne” conditions you to a negative, and people generally speak very quickly. By the time, you figure out if it is a ‘no’ or ‘only’ the next sentence has started. The second complication arises due to the spelling of ‘que’. Since it ends with an ‘e’, it takes on an apostrophe in front of vowel and therefore gets merged with the following word to form one word, and is therefore more difficult to pick in spoken French.
about.com - French explains a bit more about the use of ne … que. It is a bit more complicated than I thought. It turns out that the placement of ‘que’ changes the meaning of the sentence.
Je ne parle que français = I speak only French
Je ne parle français qu’en France = I speak French only in France.
what comes to your mind as the repository of knowledge on the Internet?
9/10 will respond: Wikipedia.
And yet the information available in ABOUT.COM is far superior to any I have seen on one site. The information on ‘About.com’ is very detailed and the chances that you will come away having absorbed the knowledge are substantially high.
Needless to say, ‘About.com’ is an extremely valuable resource for those who attempt to learn French (or for that matter any) language on their own. When I wanted to understand a bit more about ne … que a visit to the relevant page is all I needed.
The problem I had with ne … que is that it works exactly opposite to ne … pas, ne … plus, ne … jamais. While the other negations prevent you from doing something, ne … que allows you that one single thing follows it.
Thus, for example,
Je parle français = I speak French
Je ne parle pas français = I don’t speak French
Je ne parle plus français = I don’t speak French anymore
Je ne parle jamais français = I never speak French
but
Je ne parle que français = I speak only French
“So, what is so problematic with this,” I hear you say. The problem is not when you see it written. The problem is when you hear someone speak – as in a recorded speech. The “ne” conditions you to a negative, and people generally speak very quickly. By the time, you figure out if it is a ‘no’ or ‘only’ the next sentence has started. The second complication arises due to the spelling of ‘que’. Since it ends with an ‘e’, it takes on an apostrophe in front of vowel and therefore gets merged with the following word to form one word, and is therefore more difficult to pick in spoken French.
about.com - French explains a bit more about the use of ne … que. It is a bit more complicated than I thought. It turns out that the placement of ‘que’ changes the meaning of the sentence.
Je ne parle que français = I speak only French
Je ne parle français qu’en France = I speak French only in France.
No comments:
Post a Comment