anglais C2 | français A1

[flint elm]

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[crisp aurora]

because it's a pronominal verb
are you familiar with these?

[glossy urchin]

reflexive infinitive

to [verb] oneself

se lever - to get oneself up

je me leve - i get myself up

[mighty osprey]

I was aware that se was reflexive

e.g. il se regardé is he looked at himself

[glossy urchin]

il s'est regardé *

[mighty osprey]

oh right

need the copula

thank you

[crisp aurora]

the copula...?

[mighty osprey]

"is" is a copula

[glossy urchin]

?

[glossy urchin]

no because its past tense

reflexive passé composé uses etre

je me suis levé

[mighty osprey]

Why does that sentence use est then?

[crisp aurora]

ohhh, a copula is a connecting word
my mind went somewhere else

[glossy urchin]

dont worry about this at a1

lets focus on il se regarde

[mighty osprey]

I'm A2, haven't updated this in a while

[mighty osprey]

why is etre not in that sentence?

[crisp aurora]

it is though

« Je me suis levé... »

that's the être auxiliary

we use it for pronominal verbs (i.e. verbs that have « se »)

here's another example:

• Tu t'es réveillé tôt.

[mighty osprey]

but se isn't in je me suis levé

[glossy urchin]

etre is there, its conjugated

[mighty osprey]

I'm not challenging you btw, I just like to figure out why I'm wrong lol

[glossy urchin]

no no its okay

être
je suis
tu es
il est
nous sommes
vous êtes
ils sont

[glossy urchin]

se became me because its oneself

[crisp aurora]

what i mean by that is « se » is in the infinitive form of the verb

the infinitive of the verb in the example is « se réveiller »

[mighty osprey]

can you define infinitive?

[crisp aurora]

it's the basic, unconjugated form of the verb

it's basically the name of the verb

[mighty osprey]

So me can be used in passé composé but se can't?

[mighty osprey]

Like aller

[crisp aurora]

yesss

[mighty osprey]

Got it :D

OH

SE IS ONLY USED IN THE INFINITIVE FORM

[crisp aurora]

when you have the infinitive of a pronominal verb, you have to use one of the reflexive pronouns with it
the reflexive pronouns are me, te, se, nous, and vous

[glossy urchin]

se laver - wash oneself
se = oneself
it is a place holder to whatever you make it to
like wash myself etc

je me lave

i clean myself

se becomes me to make it so i wash myself

tu te leves - se becomes te to makr it yourself

eyc

[glossy urchin]

yes

voilà

[mighty osprey]

So infinitives would hardly ever be used in French?

[crisp aurora]

no

they are used

[mighty osprey]

Because most of the time verbs have a subject and an object

[glossy urchin]

they are used

[mighty osprey]

Oh okay

[crisp aurora]

like in « Je vais manger »

[glossy urchin]

je veux manger

i want to eat

[crisp aurora]

it's used here because only the first verb is conjugated, and the second one is left unconjugated

[mighty osprey]

I go to eat

[glossy urchin]

i am going to eat

[mighty osprey]

That's future tense

[glossy urchin]

yes

its called near future

futur proche

[crisp aurora]

aller (au présent) + verbe à l'infinitif

[glossy urchin]

oui

je vais manger, je vais me lever

[crisp aurora]

yes

[mighty osprey]

And me is used in that case because it's your own face

[glossy urchin]

its me

[crisp aurora]

yes

[glossy urchin]

i am going to wash myself

[crisp aurora]

because « je » is used

[glossy urchin]

if it were je vais te laver

imma wash u

[mighty osprey]

Je vais laver ~ I am going to wash

without specifying what/who

[crisp aurora]

this is how reflexive pronouns correspond to subject pronouns:

• je → me
• tu → te
• il/elle → se
• nous → nous
• vous → vous
• ils/elles → se
  these are used with pronominal verbs only

[crisp aurora]

yes

here, you can notice that the verb laver is in its infinitive form

[mighty osprey]

I see

because aller (au présent) + verbe à l'infinitif

[crisp aurora]

yup

[mighty osprey]

the verb doesn't have a subject so it's infinitive

[crisp aurora]

i guess...

weII, it does have a subject

[mighty osprey]

object*

[crisp aurora]

you are going to do the washing

[glossy urchin]

i am going to wash you

je vais te laver

you swapped places

i will you wash

[crisp aurora]

isn't that "I'm going to lift you up"?

[mighty osprey]

That makes sense!

French is SOV then

Subject-Object-Verb, wait, maybe not, depending on the sentence

[mighty osprey]

I think flutters meant laver

[crisp aurora]

yeah...

[glossy urchin]

sorry

i keep mixing lever laver

[mighty osprey]

Thank you both so much

to lift up being lever

like levitate

[lucid ibex]

Now as to why verbs are pronominal, that’s because they just happen to be. However for verbs like promener, there’s a pronominal and non-pronominal form; the former is used for walking yourself (idiomatically translated as ‘taking a walk’) and the latter for walking something else

Je me promène tous les jours
(I take a walk [walk myself] every day)

Je promène mon chien tous les jours
(I take my dog for a walk [walk my dog] every day)

[mighty osprey]

So the non-pronominal form doesn't use a reflexive?

[mighty osprey]

Je vais me rester dans un hôtel.

does dans un hôtel proceeding rester mean that rester has to be conjugated?

[lucid ibex]

No, it’s in the name

Just in case you think I’m taking the piss out of you, reflexives are only in pronominals; the existence of a reflexive pronoun is the defining trait of a pronominal verb

[lucid ibex]

Conjugation only happens to the first verb in a clause. This clause already has « aller » conjugated according to « je » which gives us « je vais ».

Since you’re a native English speaker, I have two questions:
(1) Do you say:
[a] He wants to drink some coffee
or
[b] He wants drinks some coffee

(2) Do you say:
[a] He’s going to go home
or
[b] He’s going goes home

[mighty osprey]

a and a of course

[mighty osprey]

Got it, and I didn't think you were taking the piss

[mighty osprey]

So I said a grammatically correct sentence?

[lucid ibex]

Right and that’s exactly the same logic: you only conjugate once per clause. You don’t say « Il va revient » in the same vein as you not saying ‘He’s going comes home’

[lucid ibex]

Yup

Now when it comes to compound tenses like passé composé, you have to remember that the conjugated verb is the auxiliary verb and not the entire auxiliary plus participle.

One of the things I see often is people learning that object pronouns are placed before the verb (« Je te vois » not « Je vois toi ») and so when they meet a compound tense they think the aux + participle is the entire bit and so they’ll say « J’ai te vu ». No, the object pronoun comes before the conjugated verb which is just the auxiliary so it’ll always be « Je t’ai vu ».

[smoky socket]

As far as I'm aware, se would also be used if the subject was il instead of je. like 'il se lave'

didn't read further in the chat, someone already said that😔

[lucid ibex]

Same thing also happens to negation where I’ve seen a lot of people say « Je n’ai vu pas » since they learnt that negation wraps around the verb. It wraps around the conjugated verb so it’s always « Je n’ai pas vu ». The only exception is « ne … personne » where it does come after the participle: « Je n’ai vu personne ».

[ivory wedge]

The same thing happens with aucun(e).

Je n'en ai vu aucun(e).

☺️