finn (corrigez-moi svp!)

[fluid whale]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[stark sable]

It’s understandable but it’s not correct.
Je ne peux pas penser à quelque chose à dire*

[stoic remnant]

ohhh how come à is used at those parts of the sentence?

[amber quiver]

Because « penser » takes two prepositions:
penser + à qqch/qqn = having an image of something/someone in your mind
penser + de qqch = asking for an opinion

« Tu penses toujours à Julie ? »
=> Julie is still in your mind and I'm asking if you're thinking of her in this moment

« Qu'est-ce que tu penses de mes chaussures ? »
=> I'm asking you your opinion about my shoes

As for « quelque chose à dire », « à + infinitif » sometimes takes on a passive meaning so 'something to be said'.

[golden mesa]

Note that it's a bit odd to use the verb "pouvoir" here
In English the verb "can" can express the meaning of "to manage to" in French that meaning is better expressed in other ways

Saying "je ne peux pas penser à quelque chose à dire" almost makes it sound like you have a disability preventing you from thinking of something or otherwise some sort of outside force compelling you to not think of something.

If you instead want to express the idea that you can manage to think of somehting, it would be better to say "je n'arrive pas à penser à quelque chose à dire" or perhaps "je n'arrive pas à penser à une réponse"

Another, perhaps more idiomatic, approach would be to say "rien ne me vient à l'esprit"

[maiden blaze]

"Je ne trouve rien a dire" after unexpected news, to show embarrassement, if you are impressed, if can't articulate your feelings

"Je n'ai rien a ajouter" agreeing with what has been said, if you have completed an explanation , if you don't want to contribute to a speach

[rotund dagger]

just to make it explicit, in negative sentences with something in english usually translate to french rien

otherwise it sounds like there's some thing which you can't say rather than nothing

[stoic remnant]

thank you guys all for the explanations! this rlly helped me understand this a lot better and also more how sentences are made :3

i have a hard time figuring out if i can literally translate something or if the verbs im using would be TOO literal and alter the meaning

[wintry marten]

you'd learn more using a bilingual dictionary like wordreference, google translate is just an algorithm that's deliberately trying to make things make sense, even if they're off in the original language

It's not a learning tool at all

[stoic remnant]

oh no that’s not google translate its the deepL translator 😭 i wasnt trying to use it as a tool for learning i just wanted to see if i was generally getting the idea across, but i had a feeling i was missing some more specific details

i just wanted to see if i could generally get there on my own

[wintry marten]

Deepl is just an algorithm that's deliberately trying to make things make sense, even if they're off in the original language
It's not a learning tool at all

It's good to experiment and play with a foreign language - that's how you form connections in your brain and internalize stuff - but you're really not getting any meaningless feedback from a machine translator

Try the chatrooms on this server like #français-débutant and you can get feedback from people while actually using the langauge