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Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers
14,805 questions • 32,078 answers • 985,483 learners
Do non-reflexive verbs used in the past tense with a reflexive pronoun use être or avoir?
For example, if the above sentence "Les deux chiens se fixèrent avec méfiance" is put in the past tense, do we use être with the verb "fixer" (-->"Les deux chiens se sont fixées avec méfiance")?
Or, am I asking the wrong question? In other words, in French perhaps there is no such thing as verbs that are "non-reflexive." Instead, is it that case that any verb used with a reflexive pronoun automatically becomes a reflexive verb, which means the rule regarding use of être in forming the past tense applies?
Paul me fait mal vs. Elle me fait du mal quand elle dit ça. I understand that du is for emotional pain and à is for physical pain, so why does the first example have neither?
From the spelling I imagine it should be masculine.
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