Using l'imparfait with ne...jamaisRecently while talking to a friend in French (she is native) I wanted to say something like "I never knew you used to do that!" and I used l'imparfait with 'ne ... jamais' and said "Je ne savais jamais..." because I considered it to be something ongoing or habitual in the past.
However she corrected me and said I should either say "Je ne savais pas" or "Je n'ai jamais su". In this instance, yes it probably would have been more proper in English to actually say "I didn't know you used to do that", however for futher investigation I tried translating the following negative statements (which express a habitual/repeated or ongoing situation in the past) and they all returned a translation using passé composé rather than l'imparfait:
"The guy I was dating never let me pay for anything"
"Le gars avec qui je sortais ne m'a jamais laissé payer..."
"I never used to eat olives, but now I'm addicted!"
"Je n'ai jamais mangé d'olives..."
"When she was studying, I would never see her, but now we catch up all the time" ... etc etc
Is there a rule in french that the sense of "never/jamais" cannot be used in the imperfect past tense? Maybe it's grammtically incorrect and simply saying "I never ate olives" suffices here in French without needing that "used to" nuance that we have in english?
Thanks
Why is it des fleurs and not des fleures? As i understand it, flowers are feminine.
Thanks
"Sais-tu que Amy est mort?" - "Je ne le sais pas" OR "Je ne sais pas"?
According to the lesson saying that le replace ideas that are introduced by que, but "je ne sais pas" seem more commonly used
HI,
I was wondering I took the test and the question asked me if je suis professeur is Leon or Marie and I put Leon cause it's a masc ending but was marked wrong? Then the next question was je suis acteur and select Michael or Catherine or both of them and when I chose both of them it was marked wrong and said I should have picked Michael!
So why is the word acteur marked for masculine but the professeur is not?
Thanks
Nicole
Recently while talking to a friend in French (she is native) I wanted to say something like "I never knew you used to do that!" and I used l'imparfait with 'ne ... jamais' and said "Je ne savais jamais..." because I considered it to be something ongoing or habitual in the past.
However she corrected me and said I should either say "Je ne savais pas" or "Je n'ai jamais su". In this instance, yes it probably would have been more proper in English to actually say "I didn't know you used to do that", however for futher investigation I tried translating the following negative statements (which express a habitual/repeated or ongoing situation in the past) and they all returned a translation using passé composé rather than l'imparfait:
"The guy I was dating never let me pay for anything"
"Le gars avec qui je sortais ne m'a jamais laissé payer..."
"I never used to eat olives, but now I'm addicted!"
"Je n'ai jamais mangé d'olives..."
"When she was studying, I would never see her, but now we catch up all the time" ... etc etc
Is there a rule in french that the sense of "never/jamais" cannot be used in the imperfect past tense? Maybe it's grammtically incorrect and simply saying "I never ate olives" suffices here in French without needing that "used to" nuance that we have in english?
Thanks
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