Pourquoi pas "devant moi"?
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Jose R.Kwiziq community member
Pourquoi pas "devant moi"?
This question relates to:French lesson "À côté de, en face de, à l'extérieur de, à l'intérieur de, près de, loin de, au coin de (French Prepositions)"
Asked 7 years ago
Ron T. Kwiziq Q&A super contributor
Bonjour Jose,
Let's see if I can explain this one correctly:
The following prepositions are used to indicate relative physical positions of one thing to another.
dans in/inside
sur on/on top of
devant in front of
derrière behind
entre between
sous underneath
Warning: Although the prepositions above are straightforward, in general, the choice of which preposition to use in different contexts varies. You can't translate literally to/from English but you will learn through experience!
The use of «en face de» denotes «opposite» while «devant» denotes «in front of»,. While in some contexts, they do seem to be synonymous, in the case «Tu es là, en face de moi. -->
You are there, opposite me.» I get the sense that the person is possibly sitting across a desk from the speaker.
I imagine that if my response is incorrect that someone from the Kwiziq team will provide a further explanation.
J'espère que ma réponse vous aiderait.
Bonne chance et bonne continuation dans vos études en français, la langue de Molière et qui a été utilisé par le monde français depuis l’époque d’Hugues Capet
Chris W. Kwiziq Q&A super contributor
To complement Ron's answer:
avant = before in a temporal sense, i.e., earlier.
devant = before in a spatial sense, i.e., in front of.
Il est arrivé avant moi = He arrived before me.
Il s'est assis devant moi = He sat in front of me.
-- Chris (not a native speaker).
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