"He talks directly to his children."
Translation:Il parle à ses enfants directement.
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"Il parle directement aux ses enfants" I knew it looked wrong but I tried it anyway. Why isn't 'aux' used even though there's a plural?
That is because in "Personne ne me parle", the object is a pronoun, i.e. "me". Reminder : a grammatical "object" is the part of the sentence that doesn't do the action (here, it is the person that is talked to).
Yet, that pronoun is an indirect pronoun, i.e. the object is used with a preposition. Let's see with another object, "Mark" for instance (it's easier than with "me"):
- "Personne ne parle à Mark" = "Nobody talks to Mark". ("Personne ne parle Mark" could only make sense if "Mark" were a language! ;-)
Now, if we were already talking about Mark, and I don't wanna repeat the name, I can use a pronoun instead and say :
- Personne ne lui parle = Nobody talks to him. As you can see, the preposition "à" has disappeared, whereas it's still visible in English (to him).
So, that "lui" is an indirect pronoun, used for an indirect object.
Thing is, "lui" is a specific form of indirect third-person pronoun (for "him" or "her", pssibly "it"). The direct pronoun for 3d persons is "le" or "la". But with "me", there is no difference bteween direct and indirect forms, so maybe that's why you're confused. Look :
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"Il me voit" (He sees me): "voir" is a direct verb, like the English "to see", i.e. no preposition is needed. And the pronoun is "me".
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"Personne ne me parle" (Nobody talks to me): "parler à" is indirect, yet the pronoun is the same, also "me".
But if you want/need to emphasize you can see it's indirect :
- "Tour le monde te parle, mais personne ne parle à moi !" (Everybody talks to you, but no-one talks to me). This would be to insist ; in English you'd have to use your tone to emphasize the "to me" part.
981
"Je vais directement chez mes parents" was translated at "I am going directly to my parents' house".
By that logic, shouldnt this be "Il parle directement ses enfants?"
Nope it's indirect, hence the "to"/"à" (although the presence of such a preposition isn't always compulsory in English, e.g. He gives his friend a present / He gives a present to his friend).
To talk/parler is rarely used with direct objects, only with languages or the likes.
Whereas "to say/dire" demands a (direct) object, whether in,the form of a noun (dire quelque chose) or another verbal clause (dire de faire quelque chose / que...).
"Parler / to talk" can be used alone : "Maintenant j'écris mais d'habitude je parle (beaucoup)".