“Would” causing confusion “We would gather at the … table”
translates to:
On se retrouvait à la table…
On se rassemblait à la table…
On se réunissait à la table…
How is the “would” in “We would gather” reflected here? How is this different from “we gathered”, “we used to gather”, or “we were gathering”?
Same thing with “and we'd devour …” translating to “et on dévorait…”.
The French imparfait seems natural here. Maybe it’s really the function of the English word “would” that’s confusing me when trying to analyse it. It’s the same word as the conditional “would”, but this is not conditional. It’s not the main verb, e.g. “to gather”. It’s almost like an English imperfect version of “to be”.
Helpful comments welcome!
What is the difference between:
Qu’est-ce que c’est que le Sacré Coeur à Paris ?
and
Qu'est-ce que le Sacré Coeur à Paris ?
"Bien que Mateo sache déjà ce qu'il allait étudier à l'université," / "Although Mateo already knew what he was going to study at university,"
For this sentence I used the subjunctive past tense ""Bien que Mateo ait déjà su ce qu'il allait étudier à l'université," which is obviously not correct, but please can someone explain why? I assume it's because him knowing is not a single event in the past so the present subjunctive is the only alternative?
Nick
“We would gather at the … table”
translates to:
On se retrouvait à la table…
On se rassemblait à la table…
On se réunissait à la table…
How is the “would” in “We would gather” reflected here? How is this different from “we gathered”, “we used to gather”, or “we were gathering”?
Same thing with “and we'd devour …” translating to “et on dévorait…”.
The French imparfait seems natural here. Maybe it’s really the function of the English word “would” that’s confusing me when trying to analyse it. It’s the same word as the conditional “would”, but this is not conditional. It’s not the main verb, e.g. “to gather”. It’s almost like an English imperfect version of “to be”.
Helpful comments welcome!
I have another question about the use of passé compose with s’en aller. The text states: en will be before or after être: formally, it should be before, but in practice, it often ends up after.
Would the example Nous nous sommes en allés be better as Nous nous en sommes allés? It doesn’t seem to flow as well.
Merci!
Why is à laquelle correct and à qui wrong in the above?
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