okiteiru_

[summer rune]

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.

[proud oracle]

se lever

Je me lève
Tu te lèves
Il se lève
Elle se lève
On se lève
Nous nous levons
Vous vous levez
Ils se lèvent
Elles se lèvent

you conjugate the verb normally and this is how the pronouns work

[haughty jetty]

okay

thanks!

but when do i know that its a reflexive verb?

[haughty ermine]

Even in infinitive form, you still agree the pronoun with the person you're talking about.

Me lever tard est devenu une habitude
Here, you're talking about yourself so me is used.
Se is just the default form you see in dictionaries.

When you do an action on yourself, you can use the reflexive form of a verb.

For example, lever is a transitive verb and means get (someone) up. If that someone is yourself, you use the reflexive pronoun se: se lever.

[haughty jetty]

right

im trying to explain it in words

[haughty ermine]

Reflexive verbs are a set of pronominal verbs.
You can read up on them here: https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/pronominal-verbs/

[haughty jetty]

subject acts on itself

subject acts on another

that helps massively

[haughty ermine]

On one another but yes.

So you'll see the plural conjugation for reciprocal verbs.

[haughty jetty]

thats a fucking headache why did they do this

thanks

[stark fable]

It actually makes things explicit

if I just say 'I wake up' well who is being woken up

Someone else? No one? A ghost?

You'd understand that it is the subject who is actually being woken up; it is reflexive (the one receiving the action is also the one doing it)

In French, we have « réveiller » which takes an object; you are doing an action and someone/something else receives it. If I say « Je réveille mon ami », it's clear who does what; me, the speaker, wakes up someone else, my friend

If we want to make it so that we wake up ourselves, we just use our own pronoun: Je me réveille (I wake myself up/I wake up)

[haughty jetty]

fair enough

[haughty jetty]

for the sentence

comment s'est passée ta journée

the subject being journée

how the hell is it acting on itself

the day is daying really hard right now

[stark fable]

one of the many meanings of « passer » is 'to spend' like « J'ai passé beaucoup de temps à étudier (I spent a lot of time studying) »

so when we say « se passer » we're kinda like saying 'to spend itself'

'How did your day spend itself' or more figuratively, 'How did your day unfold/happen/go past/elapsed'

[haughty jetty]

that's a way of asking it i guess

[stark fable]

That's because we can also use the reflexive to describe the passive

[haughty jetty]

how did the solar rotation treat you today?

[stark fable]

so we can think of it also as 'How was your day'

[haughty jetty]

thanks for the explanation!

[stark fable]

I mean reflexives are mad but sometimes there is a logic in the madness

[haughty jetty]

no the french are just mad

[stark fable]

valid

the English are madder though

[upper canopy]

Pour conjuguer au passé composé, tu utiliserais le verbe « être » plutôt que le verbe « avoir ».
Par exemple :
Je me suis brossé
Tu t’es brossé
Il s’est brossé / Elle s’est brossée
Nous nous sommes brossés
Vous vous êtes brossés
Ils / Elles sont brossé ( e ) s

[proud oracle]

j’ai levé le pied

mais

je me suis levé ce matin

isn’t there a law less article about this?

[haughty ermine]

I posted the link.