The verb manquer is often very troublesome for English speakers of French because its structure is reversed when it applies to emotions compared to events.
Look at these sentences with the verb manquer in a pragmatic sense:
Note that to say you missed a train or school, it's very straightforward.
ATTENTION:
To express lacking [something], you will use manquer de or d' + [thing].
You do not need to use the partitive articles (du, de l', de la, des) here, just as you wouldn't say I lack the sugar but simply I lack sugar:
Je manque de sucre pour faire ce gâteau.
I lack sugar to make that cake.
Je manque d'argent pour payer mes factures
I don't have enough money to pay my bills
ATTENTION:
Il manque toujours de courage.
He always lacks courage.
Je manque de sucre pour faire ce gâteau.
I lack sugar to make that cake.
Je ne manque rien.
I don't miss anything.
Je ne manque de rien.
I lack nothing.
Je manque d'argent pour payer mes factures
I don't have enough money to pay my bills
J'ai manqué l'école
I missed school
Jacques a manqué son train
Jacques missed his train
In the explannation above, it says:
"To express lacking [something], you will use manquer de or d' + [thing].
You do not need to use the partitive articles (du, de l', de la, des) here, just as you wouldn't say I lack thesugar but simply I lack sugar:"
It's a bit confusing because then all the examples use "de". You really have to your know your grammatical terms! I wonder if it would be clearer to say:
"You do not need to use the definite articles (le, l', la, les) here".
Just a thought.
I agree with you, very confusing. I didn't understand this at all until I read your question several times. Kwiziq does a poor job of teaching this missing/lacking stuff.
I agree with you, very confusing. I didn't understand this at all until I read your question several times. Kwiziq does a poor job of teaching this missing/lacking stuff.
In the explannation above, it says:
"To express lacking [something], you will use manquer de or d' + [thing].
You do not need to use the partitive articles (du, de l', de la, des) here, just as you wouldn't say I lack thesugar but simply I lack sugar:"
It's a bit confusing because then all the examples use "de". You really have to your know your grammatical terms! I wonder if it would be clearer to say:
"You do not need to use the definite articles (le, l', la, les) here".
Just a thought.
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In this lesson one of the questions was "Marie a manqué l'école ". I would have answered this with "Marie (has) missed school." Of course this answer wasn't available and the right answer was "Marie didn't go to school." Wouldn't this be easier to understand if written like " Marie n'est pas alleé à école ?" or are all similar events ( not going/doing somewhere/something) expressed by "Manquer de ?" Thanks, Heather.
In this lesson one of the questions was "Marie a manqué l'école ". I would have answered this with "Marie (has) missed school." Of course this answer wasn't available and the right answer was "Marie didn't go to school." Wouldn't this be easier to understand if written like " Marie n'est pas alleé à école ?" or are all similar events ( not going/doing somewhere/something) expressed by "Manquer de ?" Thanks, Heather.
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J'ai manqué le concert de Michael Jackson en 1992 à Paris.” But the lesson says you don’t need partitive pronoun when meaning lack/missing something but you need DE. So why is it “J’ai manqué le concert’ not “J’ai manqué de concert”? Thanks.
You missed a specific concert, not some concert. Therefore the definite article.
J'ai manqué le concert de Michael Jackson en 1992 à Paris.” But the lesson says you don’t need partitive pronoun when meaning lack/missing something but you need DE. So why is it “J’ai manqué le concert’ not “J’ai manqué de concert”? Thanks.
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Bonjour John !
I'm here to answer the French question :)
Here the mistake is related to the position of your direct object pronoun "vous", which in the case of a compound tense like Le Passé Composé, will be just before the auxiliary, as such:
Je vous ai manqué.
I hope that's helpful!
Bonne journée !
Also: I am new to the Discussion forum. How do I find my questions? I've posed 2-3 questions but cannot remember where I put them. There doesn't appear to be an option for finding one's own questions under the Dashboard or other menu options.
Hi John,
sorry for the slow response on this we're actually in the middle of updating the whole Q&A section to make this very thing a little more obvious.
For the moment the simplest way to see your list of Questions and Answers is to navigate to your account page (use the account menu drop down on the top right of the page or go to /account directly.
From there you will see your display options:
Profile visible (View)
Achievements visible (View)
You can click on the "View" link next to your profile, on the bottom of this you will see your list of Questions and Answers. Stay tuned as we do have a fairly major revamp coming up which will make this and many other things easier.
Simon: Thanks much. Approximately when will the website update happen?
Also, will somebody be answering my specific question about French grammar?
Dear Aurélie:
Thank you. However, it's now clear if you understood my question.
I do not want "Je vous ai manqué" to mean "I missed you" in some emotional sense.
The meaning I want is "I missed you" in the sense that I missed an appointment with a person. We can say this in English, as in "I missed you (=meeting you) in front of the movie theatre because I had a flat tire." That appointment represents an event, for which the grammar lesson "Manquer (de) + thing = To miss / lack something" I think can apply. Hence my original inquiry, which I suspect is grammatically incorrect, but I hope you get the idea of what I am actually asking.
Correction: "However, it's not clear if you . . ."
I hope there's a message edit option in the upcoming website redesign.
Sorry about that John, but you were correct here :)
Je vous ai manqué. can either mean:
You missed me (in an emotional sense) or
I missed you (at the meeting ...)
Hope that helps!
@John "I hope there's a message edit option in the upcoming website redesign." - yes, there is!
Sorry to have to say this but I am getting annoying duplicate email notifications from you (Simon) and Aurélie notifying me of your replies to my Discussion board questions. I believe that Simon's first reply under this thread was accompanied by a single email notification but everything after that has had duplicate notifications.
I hope you can make this stop.
Hi John,
I've just investigated this and just to clarify this was actually not a duplicate email for the same issue under the hood as far as I can tell, it was caused by two answers being submitted in close proximity then both of them being updated just for better clarity. The result was the same for you in that it appeared to be a duplicate, we have tweaked this now to avoid this perception and yes in the new update on Q&A we'll be looking at this specifically to see if we can capture better summaries, in the unusual case when multiple users submit answers within minutes of each other (and then edit them).
Please contact our helpdesk via the "contact us" on the site form if you have any other technical issues we will certainly look into them immediately, it just allows us to track things more effectively and keep the learning Q&A separate.
Best wishes
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Hi,
This sentence on this page, "You do not need use the partitive articles" is missing the word "to" between the "need" and "use".
Just figured since you are helping me with my french, I'd help you with the english :)
Bonjour Rant !
And rightly so :) This typo has now been rectified.
Merci beaucoup et bonne journée !
Hi,
This sentence on this page, "You do not need use the partitive articles" is missing the word "to" between the "need" and "use".
Just figured since you are helping me with my french, I'd help you with the english :)
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I write a daily journal in French and was just trying to write that I miss doing something. I cannot decide whether that has to be manquer à or manquer de. I have been lacking the time to do it, which makes me think manquer de. But I have been missing doing the activity in an emotional sense. I really wish that I could do it just as I really wish that it weren't winter or that I could go back to a certain place.
Can someone help me out and tell me which one to use? Manquer à and de is one of those things I haven't fully mastered when I was A2, I'm afraid.
Tom manque à Marie. -- Marie misses Tom.Tom manque de sucre. -- Tom lacks sugar.
So manquer à quelqu'un = missing (usually of one person by another) while manquer de means lacking of something.
So the trick is, if it's a thing that is missing and I cannot replace "missing" with "lacking", it's manquer à?
I write a daily journal in French and was just trying to write that I miss doing something. I cannot decide whether that has to be manquer à or manquer de. I have been lacking the time to do it, which makes me think manquer de. But I have been missing doing the activity in an emotional sense. I really wish that I could do it just as I really wish that it weren't winter or that I could go back to a certain place.
Can someone help me out and tell me which one to use? Manquer à and de is one of those things I haven't fully mastered when I was A2, I'm afraid.
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Hi Serian,
The verbs 'manquer' or 'rater' can both be used for 'to miss a concert or a train' , 'rater' being less formal than 'manquer'.
You would use 'rater' only for to fail an exam e.g.
J 'ai raté mon permis de conduire/ mon bac = I failed my driving test/my baccalaurate
or even -
J'ai raté ma vie = I made a real hash of my life
There is another informal way to say to miss in French which you might have heard - 'louper' :
J'ai loupé le premier épisode de cette série = I missed the first episode of this series.
Hope this helps!
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I think what I'm about to ask is not possible with manquer de + thing, and I would like to confirm I am correct. Am I correct it is NOT possible to use manquer de + human attribute ?
Examples
I lack your warmth (in the emotional sense). Je manque de ton chaleur.
I lack your humour. Je manque de ton humour.
I have been told this doesn't really work in French, and I would be better off using avoir.
e.g Je n'ai pas ton chaleur. Je n'ai pas ton humour.
Any comments appreciated.
Paul.
Hi Paul,
You can use manquer de with a human attribute as in the lesson example,
'Il manque toujours de courage.'
You could say:
"Il/je manque d'humilité , de chaleur, d'humour" about someone else or about yourself.
In the sense of to lack meaning to be without you would indeed use,
'ne pas avoir'
Cette voiture n'a pas la puissance de celle-là. = This car lacks the power of that one.
Le nouvel employé n'a pas les compétences de la personne quil remplace. = The new employee lacks the skills of the person he is replacing.
Je n'ai pas les moyens d'aller en vacances cette année. = I haven't got / I lack the means to go on holiday, this year.
Hope this helps!
I think what I'm about to ask is not possible with manquer de + thing, and I would like to confirm I am correct. Am I correct it is NOT possible to use manquer de + human attribute ?
Examples
I lack your warmth (in the emotional sense). Je manque de ton chaleur.
I lack your humour. Je manque de ton humour.
I have been told this doesn't really work in French, and I would be better off using avoir.
e.g Je n'ai pas ton chaleur. Je n'ai pas ton humour.
Any comments appreciated.
Paul.
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I have now checked and the correct answer is correctly marked as:
J'ai manqué le concert de Michael Jackson en 1992 à Paris.
Hope this helps!
Hi both,
This sounds like a typo error to me ,
I missed the concert of , should be,
j'ai manqué le concert de...
Will pass on your comments and try to get it rectified.
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As a native USA speaker, when I hear “I miss nothing” I understand that to mean “Nothing escapes my notice... I miss no detail... nothing gets by me”. The french phrase “Je ne manque rien” makes sense to me in this context
However “I lack nothing” is very different and means “I have everything I need”. Here I would use “Je ne manque de rien”
Would a french native weigh in on that please?
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Bump
I know Laura has posted a reply to this question but tbh I just got more confused after reading that reply - eg why is ‘time’ considered something ‘physically’ lacking?
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Bonjour Joakim,
We've now added more precision to this lesson as to why you only use de or d' : indeed, "To express lacking <something>, you will use manquer de or d' + thing.
You won't use the partitive articles (du, de l', de la, des) here, just as you wouldn't say "I lack the sugar" but simply "I lack sugar")."
Here is a link to the updated lesson with added examples:
https://progress.lawlessfrench.com/revision/grammar/manquer-de-thing-to-miss-lack-something
Voilà !
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