35 Comments
The hover hint says "anyone" for "personne". That's not negative in my language... is it negative in French? Or does it also mean "nobody"?
I like your formula, but why is it not "ne personne" = not anyone = no one. Is this more literally: [anyone] [does not speak to me]?
I think the negtive comes from 'ne' Translated badly, you could say 'not anybody speaks to me', but obviously it makes a better sentence to say nobody or no one speaks to me.
Yes, the dictionary hover was a little confusing. I learned it as "personne ne" means "nobody". So the translation "Nobody speaks to me" was natural for me. It is complicated where "Personne" by itself can also mean "nobody". "Qui est la? Personne" (I guess short for "Personne n'est la") Hope that helps!
That is what I thought: you took "ne" out , and it would be: personne me parle. which means "person talks to me." ,then you put "ne" back into the sentence. You will get " person doesn't talk to me" that means " no one talks to me". Hope it would help you.
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When you see "personne...ne" used this way it means "nobody". It is tempting to separate them in English because they are separated in French, but it doesn't work that way. For examples, expressions which use "ne...que" mean "only" and those two words can sometimes have quite a few words in between them.
no, you use this construction when the indirect object is not a pronoun:
personne ne parle à Pierre
personne ne parle au garçon / à la fille / aux enfants
I am a bit confused about the word order. Is the ne attached to the Personne?
"personne" means "nobody/ no one", but as you may remember, French negations are made of 2 words:
ne... pas/plus/jamais
aucun... ne
personne... ne
nul... ne
How would one say "No one talk to me" ? As in "I want to be alone, no one talk to me!") Would that also be personne ne me parle?
I was wondering the same. It marked "Nobody talk to me" as wrong so I assumed it can't be used as a command.
Commands in 3rd person are not frequent, and not constructed the same way in French:
"Que personne ne me parle!"
In addition, one of the signs of a command is the absence of a subject and the presence of an exclamation mark at the end.
For a command to whom it may concern: "que personne ne me parle !" is the only way, as an alternative to "ne me parlez pas !" which is a direct address to one or several individuals.
There is no imperative for a 3rd person subject; only 2nd person singular and plural, and 1st person plural:
- ne parle pas !
- ne parlez pas !
- ne parlons pas !
I translated this as "Nobody's talking to me", which wasn't accepted, even though "Nobody is talking to me" is.
The reason is that the system does not recognize all optional contractions. So it is better to write in full letters.
Pronunciation: hovered over it says "per SOHN" but as a sentence it says "per SUHN" the latter syllable rhyming with "FUN", which is it? I've mostly heard the second pronunciation.
I reported it already, but it has not been corrected yet. However, the second syllable is pronounced like the English "son"
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The flashcards did not allow "Personne" to be "nobody" but called it "person"
You conjugate it like "nobody", 3rd person singular = he/she/it/one = il/elle/on.
Is it just me or does it sound like the male speaker says "ne" twice when they are attached? The female sounded correct with only one instance of "ne" being pronounced.
