raufaaa

[past hedge]

Please be patient

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

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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.

[violet nymph]

My girlfriend is french and she is telling me that "Je dékà savais ça" is wrong, I'd have to say "Je le savais dékà"

[swift fiber]

Yep. You can even add ça/cela before or after the sentence to add emphasis. Subject/object reduplication is super common in spoken French.

Ça, je le savais déjà.
Je le savais déjà, ça.

By the way, placing an adverb before a verb is awkward in French, it needs to come after the conjugated verb or auxiliary.

[violet nymph]

So it would only come before the verb if i said like

Je savais déjá quelques chose en freançais parce que je l’avais déjà étudie avant

At the second part of the phrase

"parace que je l'avais déjà étudie avant"

[swift fiber]

I thought I made sure to mention the auxiliary?

(In a compound tense, that is.)

[violet nymph]

Yes you did, in that case it's inbetween the auxiliary and the verb

l'avais déjá étudie

[swift fiber]

That's right.

[violet nymph]

Would it be wrong if I said l'avais étudie déjà?

[swift fiber]

It'd be weird so yes, it'd be wrong.

[violet nymph]

Alright, that's all the questions I had

Thank you!!

[tulip geyser]

In a compound tense, the verb isn’t the past participle but the auxiliary itself. In « je l’avais déjà étudié », the verb is « avoir », not « étudié », so the adverb comes after « avoir ». That’s why negation in compound tenses wrap around just the auxiliary like « Je ne l’avais pas étudie »; you will never see « Je ne l’avais étudié pas ».

[last breach]

@violet nymph The only thing that's wrong is the order

U can say je savais déjà ça

Le is like it, ça is like that

[violet nymph]

Oh so saying that isn’t wrong?

[last breach]

nop

[tulip geyser]

yeah it was just the adverb

English adverbs that modify the verb are placed before it but French adverbs are placed after

If you’re comparing this to English, know that English generally puts its adverbs before the verb it modifies. Sometimes they can be placed in the beginning or the end like in French though the rules are not concrete, unfortunately.

Au fait, le français les met généralement après le verbe que l’adverbe modifie. Parfois quelques adverbes se situent soit au début soit à la fin de la phrase. Tu peux lire les règles mais elles sont pas toujours figées, malheureusement.