Mélanie joue plus que Karine aux cartes.

Question

Mélanie joue plus que Karine aux cartes. which is marked wrong seems to me to be just an inversion of Melanie joue aux cartes plus que Karine which is correct. Is this just one of those things the French dont do, or is there an underlying reason why the first version is wrong, please?

Accepted Answer

Hi Chris, 
After discussion with the team, although what you suggest isn't strictly wrong it sounds a bit odd to French ears.
As a result, this kwiz question has been removed and replaced by another.
Hope this helps!

Answer

Hi Chris,"Mélanie joue aux cartes" reads to me as I would expect the grammar to be, in that we have the subject "Mélanie" through the verb "jouer" acting on the object "cartes".Adding "plus que Karine" simply adds a bit more information."Mélanie joue plus que Karine aux cartes" seems quite clumsy to me and awkward grammatically.Hope this helps.Jim

Answer

The French are quite particular about their word order.

Answer

You can say "Mélanie joue plus aux cartes que Karine” or "Mélanie joue aux cartes plus que Karine”.

From the lesson you can have - 1. verb,object, plus/autant/moins que or 2. verb,plus/autant/moins, object, que

The sentence you note above doesn’t follow either of those structures. I am sure the underlying reason will be “because that’s the way it is in French grammar”.

(I think the sentence also sounds odd if translated literally with same word order into English, but of course that has no bearing on whether it is right or wrong in French).