"Il ne regarde des films romantiques que le lundi."
Translation:He watches romantic movies only on Mondays.
19 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
"Il ne regarde que les films romantiques le lundi" means that on Monday he only watches romantic films and nothing else. The suggested sentence means that he only watches romantic films on mondays, and he doesn't watch them on other days, but he may also watch other films on Mondays.
"He does not watch romantic films, except on Mondays." Rejected, but why?
190
What's wrong with "He only watches romantic films on Mondays"? Surely it's the same thing and NOT wrong.
- 1765
Your suggested sentence is ambiguous, it literally means that on Mondays he does nothing but watch romantic films., but that is probably not what you meant.
We often position of the word "only" loosely in English, expecting the reader to know what we mean, rather than saying exactly what we mean.
- 825
You are correct, it is ambiguous and the pedantic interpretation would be, as you said, that he does nothing but watch romantic films on Mondays. But in common usage the interpretation would be "He watches only romantic films on Mondays." A less common interpretation would be "He watches romantic films only on Mondays." Gotta love English.
- 1333
This is clear until I start thinking about it. I guess I tend to "overthink" it. So I'm walking away!
- 980
Not me -- I keep overthinking till I get it.
"Il regarde seulement des films romantiques le lundi." = "He only watches romantic movies on Mondays."
"Il ne regarde que des films romantiques le lundi." = He watches only romantic movies on Mondays.
"Il ne regarde des films romantiques que le lundi." = "He watches romantic movies on Mondays only."
"Il regarde des films romantiques seulement le lundi." = "He watches romantic movies on only Mondays."
"He watches romantic movies only on Mondays." This could mean any one of the latter three, IMHO. It depends on how it is parsed, intonation, etc. which is why I avoid it in writing. It isn't really wrong, but needs context . . .
- 1333
I know. Now, aftee thought and study, its very easy and I always get them right. Even better, I can now compose sentences with que or seulement in the right placement.
Can anyone tell me if there are any tricks to remember this order? I literally do not get sentences like this one.
- 1765
The "trick" is that in this «ne ... que» structure, the word «que» comes right before the words that the word "only" applies to.
«ne ... que des films romantiques» --- "only romantic films"
«ne ... que le lundi» --- "only on Mondays".
"He doesn't watch romantic films except on Mondays." Rejected, but why?
"He doesn't watch romantic films except on Mondays." Rejected, but why?
- 464
'He only watches ... on Mondays' was rejected, probably the reason is that the placement of 'only' implies that on Mondays he does nothing else. I do not think that there is an iron-clad rule to the effect, interpretations are based on context and not only on word order, and the former can trump the latter. Anyway there is a large degree of ambiguity of the sentence especially when standing in isolation