"They owe us a chicken."

Translation: Ils nous doivent un poulet.

[MythicalPegasus]

Why is nous in front of doivent? You would think it would be the other way around...

[jcboy14]

Well, simply explained, that`s the construction of a french sentence, when you want to say They-to us-owe-a chicken, They owe a chicken to us or They owe us a chicken :D [EDITED]

[K333222]

what?!? no, no, I'm afraid you are completely wrong here... "nous" is here an indirect object pronoun, and this is the one and the only reason for it being placed before the verb. "un poulet" is a direct object here.

"devoir" is here used as a transitive verb, meaning that it requires a direct object (un poulet). "ils doivent" are subject and verb (predicate) here. subject and the predicate are in 3rd person plural, and indirect object is a 1st person plural.

this has nothing to with the pronominal verbs whatsoever!!

[jcboy14]

Oh, yeah, my bad. Youre right. But you dont have to be hyperbolically emotionally une chienne about it :P Christ.

[K333222]

Oh I'm sorry, I apologize, I didn't mean to offend you at all. I was just surprised how you had developed a whole theory about it :). Have a lingot as a sign of my apologies! :)

[jcboy14]

I thought i was saying the right rule, not a theory, but you were right on correcting me, i just don`t get it when someone corrects someone else very emphatically, merci beaucoup!! :)

[Rachel66E]

I think I'm getting worse not better.
I put notre here as I thought it mean't us. I checked this out on google and it changes the meaning of doivent to need. I thought besoin would have been need. So is this why we have to use nous not notre?

[Kazzahdrane]

Nous - we/us
Notre - our
Nos - our (plural)

Notre maison - Our house
Nous habitons dans notre maison - We live in our house
Nous habitons dans nos maisons - We live in our houses

Hope that helps :)

[Rachel66E]

Thank you for the help.

[M.E.McK]

Are you only allowed to use Ce with vous and never with nous?

[AabLevellen]

No.