Merle asked: "Can you explain the construction of this sentence to me : 'je les ai voulues' ?"

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Accepted Answer

Bonjour Merle !

"Je les ai voulues." means "I wanted them." ... So far so good ;)
The verb "vouloir" is here conjugated in Le Passé Composé : "j'ai voulu"
"Les" is the direct object pronoun "them", and here we know it refers to an object that is feminine and plural ... How? Because of the agreement of the past participle "voulu-es".
This follows the advanced rule that with verbs taking "avoir" as an auxiliary, you'll agree the past participle with the *object* of the verb but ONLY if this one is placed before the auxiliary "avoir" in the sentence, which occurs when using the object pronouns!

Here is a link to the related lesson:
Special cases when the past participle agrees (in number & gender) when used with 'avoir' in the compound past in French (Le Passé Composé)

I hope that's helpful!
À bientôt !

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I'm sure I'm very grateful but confess to drowning and not waving...... My ancient brain just simply does not retain all this grammar, so will have to learn to accept my limitations.  Thank you anyway!

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Hey Merle, don't give up.  I'm 63 and doing it.  I've had to go through direct and indirect object pronouns about 3 times but it is finally sinking in.  Leave this subject for a while, then come back to it.  You'll get it.

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Merci, Robert.... Know what you mean - the older the brain, the slower it is but all this hard work is good for us mentally and socially (we live in France, so need the language..). Trouble is, don't remember learning all of this stuff in English way back in the late 40's and early 50's so it's a struggle.  Keep going!