"Je ne vais pas citer de noms."
Translation:I am not going to mention names.
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It took me a while to figure it out, too. After a negative construction such as "ne (insert verb) pas", you would omit the article. So instead of des (de+les), you have "de". Make sense?
In the negative (but not the interrogative), de is commonly used on its own instead of an indefinite article (un, une, du, des, etc,) as the rough equivalent of 'a', 'no' or 'any':
examples
Pas de problème - not a problem
Je n’ai pas de frère - I don’t have a brother
Je n’ai pas de pain - I don’t have any bread
You kind of just have to infer it in this case. "I won't mention name" really doesn't make sense in this case, so it has to be 'noms.'
Technically, I think it could still be "nom," singular. "I won't mention a name" --> "Je ne vais pas mentionner de nom". "Un" and "une" become "de," also. The only article not to change to "de" after a negation is the definite article, le la les.
This is where one has to invoke what little context we have and then use idiomatic (natural sounding) English to translate it. Yes, citer can mean a lot of different things, but not all of them sound natural in English when talking about names.
Yes, in the negative construction it can be interpreted as "any" and it is accepted.
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I'm not going to cite names. rejected They want "any names"
Is that a legitimate rejection?
I agree, and am reporting (1/21/2015), though if someone knows why I should know that "any" goes in there, please let me know.
The "any" is optional. It is accepted both with and without the word "any".
- 1087
I believe that should be an acceptable translation. You could also use the future tense, ""Je ne citerai pas de noms."
Why do they say, I am not going to mention "any" names? Where does the word any come from?????
- 1087
It's the "de" - it's the negative version of "some":
"J'ai des pommes" = "I have some apples" (or "I have apples"; the "some is optional in English)
"Je n'ai pas de pommes" = "I don't have any apples" (or "I don't have apples"; the "any" is also optional).
We are far beyond the point where every French word has an exact counterpart in English and vice versa. Translation involves understanding the original sentence in its own language and then expressing an accurate, grammatical and natural expression of that in the other language. DianaM's comment is exactly right.
"Je ne vais pas citer de nom" was accepted on the 11th of February 2020. Note the missing "s" from the last word.
Once before i inserted "any" before "names" and it was accepted, and this time it wasnt. What's up with that?
I listened really, really closely and I think "deux noms" sounds exactly the same - so could that be accepted too in the future?
No, I understand there will be a difference in sound between "deux" and "de", when it's articulated better! I just really think there is no difference when you listen to this lady's pronunciation here. Am I the only one?
Here I imagined a situation like when the writer of an essay is asked to cite two names in the text, but she refuses to do so (because one is enough).
I agree with Diana, the emphasis and phrasing would be different. De is pronounced quickly more like d’ and would be phrased ‘citer de-noms’ and deux is longer more like der and phrased ‘citer deux noms‘.
- 1087
I really wouldn't take what I hear here to be "deux noms". If it were "deux noms", there would be a different emphasis.