"Elle n'est pas aussi jeune qu'elle en a l'air."
Translation:She is not as young as she looks.
27 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
1012
Why "en"? I thought that it only replaced objects preceeded by the preposition "de".
76
Has anyone tried to use the pleonastic "ne" here, i.e., "elle n'est pas aussi jeune qu'elle n'en a l'air." Maybe it's old-fashioned, but I think it's still correct, and I hate it when things are marked as incorrect when they aren't. If it's truly incorrect, I'd like to know why.
Yes, it apparently was, after Greek and Latin. Please take a look at "air n.2": https://www.etymonline.com/word/air
Say we switched the comparatives from adjectives to nouns. Would the following sentences be correct?
J'ai plus de pommes que je le voudrais = i have more apples than I'd like.
Elle a autant d'étudiants qu'elle le veut = she has as many students as she wants.
Ils ont moins d'argent qu'ils en ont l'air = they have less money than they seem to have.
Merci à l'avance.
-
"Il est plus intelligent que ce à quoi je m'attendais." is good.
-
"Il est plus intelligent que je m'y attendais." is not right, because "s'attendre à" is quite difficult as the first sentence shows.
An alternative would use "espérer" and the expletive "ne":
- "Il est plus intelligent que je ne l'espérais".
While we are on a thread concerning comparisons, I suppose another useful thing to be able to compare is expectation. In doing a few Google searches, I ran across a couple of constructions concerning "s'attendre à" with comparisons.
Il est plus intelligent que ce à quoi je m'attendais. Il est plus intelligent que je m'y attendais.
Are both of these equally correct? Are there situations where one would be preferable?
Thanks