Please help

Question

I notice that my answers in this lesson might as well be random.
This lesson opens with the statement:
“In French, there are two different structures to express "reminding", depending on whether we mean to be reminded of [something] or to prompt someone to remember [to do something].”
Let’s call to be reminded of something ‘A’ and to prompt someone to remember ‘B’
The structure of A is:
“rappeler + person one's reminded of + à + person being reminded” 
unless an object pronoun appears in the sentence. If there is, the structure of A becomes:
”me/te/lui/nous/vous/leur + rappeler + person one is reminded of"
So there are two different sentence structures  for A.
When we want to prompt someone to remember (B), the structure is:
"rappeler + à + person being reminded + de+ [infinitif]” 
unless an object pronoun appears in the sentence. If there is, the structure of B becomes:
“me/te/lui/nous/vous/leur + rappeler + de + [infinitif]” 
Note this involves two different sentence structures in the case of B. 
Each of these sentence structures differ, one from the others, so in fact there are four structures involved in French to express reminding.
As the lesson is presented, a student must retain these four only slightly different structures and identify where to use them in order to progress with this lesson.
Were the lesson split in two - using the A and B situations described above, the student would need to retain and identify only two structures at a time, leading to a better chance of succeeding in A before progressing to B.
I imagine this would lead to this lesson attracting less confusion and improved learning. Or am I missing something? Is there a logic or pattern that evades me?

Céline Pickard · Accepted Answer

Bonjour David,
Take a look at my response here: 
This lesson is more confusing than it needs to be.
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

Maarten Kamp · Answer

David,I agree with you that this lesson is overly complex and could be simplified. Splitting it could be a good start. The principles are the same for the 2 expressions, but it is still a big chunk for a single lesson,  and the differences between English and French ‘ multiply ‘ the options as you note.The comments below are not a great simplification but hopefully cover the ‘ logic or pattern ‘ part of your query.To start with, it is easier I think to consider the verb form here as the verb expression ‘rappeler à’, to separate it from ‘ rappeler ‘. Just as in English, we would not confuse ‘ remember ‘ with ‘ remind ‘,  a native French speaker won’t confuse ‘ rappeler ‘ with ‘ rappeler à ‘.There are 2 main in points of difference when using the French “ rappeler à qqn “ in the same sense as the English  ‘ remind someone ‘. One is idiosyncratic, and the other is the general difference in the way English and French deal with object pronouns.These 2 differences apply regardless of whether it is : a) remind someone of someone else or some other animal/thing  ‘ rappeler qqn à qqn/qqc ‘, or b) remind someone to do something ‘ rappeler à qqn de faire qqc ‘.1) In English the noun or pronoun for the person ‘ being reminded ‘ is a direct object, while in French the noun or pronoun for the person being reminded (rappeler à qqn) is an indirect object. There is no standard rule for this - these are idiosyncratic differences. Téléphoner à qqn, demander à qqn in French are other similar examples. On the other hand ‘ écouter qqc ‘ takes a direct object in French, while it is  ‘ listen to something ‘ in English.  2) In English it is easy with direct and indirect objects- whether noun or pronoun, they normally follow the verb. In French, the general rule is that direct and indirect object nouns follow the verb, but direct and indirect object pronouns precede the verb. Of course, the preposition ‘ à ‘ also disappears when an indirect object pronoun precedes the verb. ( Other lessons in the course cover this - example below.)  https://progress.lawlessfrench.com/revision/grammar/when-to-use-me-te-nous-and-vous-as-me-you-us-and-you-direct-and-indirect-object-pronouns https://progress.lawlessfrench.com/revision/grammar/when-to-use-lui-and-leur-to-replace-specific-people-with-him-her-and-them-indirect-object-pronouns