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- Topic: French >
- "Un homme nous suit."
13 Comments
wait wait wait... are you telling me that je suis means both "I am" and "I follow"?? what if I wanted to say "Je suis l'homme"...am I saying that I follow the man or that I am the man? Is there a common rule I should know?
Conjugation of verb être: je suis, tu es, il/elle/on est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils/elles sont.
Conjugation of verb suivre: je suis, tu suis, il/elle/on suit, nous suivons, vous suivez, ils/elles suivent.
So, you are right, "je suis" can mean either "I am" or "I follow". Context will tell you which is which.
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I am trying to do the test outs as suggested by Duolingo. As I have reported before the female speaker's voice is incomprehensible. I have decided not to do these exercise and I do not mind loosing fluency scores .Duolingo is a learning tool not a rat race. i will only do the exercises that are reasonably comprehensible. Thank you .
I said, "a man we follow" - can someone explain how I can see this word order correctly? (first attempt and was sure glad I remembered it meant "follow" even if I got it wrong :-))
Un homme nous suit / A man follows us: who follows? un homme/a man = subject of "suit/follows"
A man (whom) we follow / Un homme que nous suivons: who follows? we/nous = subject of "follow/suivons".
So you have switched subject and object.
Ah so. Have had trouble getting used to subject order since we don't say, "I you follow" so now I will keep that in mind - thank you very much!
Why can't I say "Un homme qui nous suivons?" And why is suit acceptable for the nous form?
Look at these structures:
a man who follows us = un homme qui nous suit: "qui" is a relative pronoun, in its subject form (subject of "suit" - "nous" is the direct object)
a man whom we follow = un homme que nous suivons: "que" is a relative pronoun, in its object form (direct object of "suivons" - the subject of the verb is "nous)
