Module 9 of 10
Saying no
Two words wrapped around the verb, one of which disappears in speech.
Negation in French is a sandwich: ne goes before the verb, pas goes after, and the verb sits between them. Je ne comprends pas. Il n'est pas là. Before a vowel ne becomes n', which is why it is il n'est and not il ne est. There is no equivalent of the English do — you do not build a helper verb first, you just wrap the one you have.
Then there is what people actually say. In ordinary speech the ne vanishes almost entirely: je sais pas, c'est pas grave, j'aime pas. You should expect to hear this constantly and you should not imitate it in anything you write — a transcript full of je sais pas reads as not knowing the rule rather than as knowing the register. Say it either way, write it with the ne. And learn je ne comprends pas properly, because it is the phrase that keeps a conversation in French instead of collapsing it into English.
Played by your device’s own French voice. It is a synthetic voice, not a recording of a teacher — close enough to learn the shape of a word, not close enough to copy exactly.
- Je ne comprends pasI do not understand
- Je ne sais pasI do not know
- Je ne parle pas bien françaisI do not speak French well
- Ce n'est pas graveIt does not matter, never mind
- Il n'est pas làHe is not here
- Je sais pasDunno — the spoken form, with the ne dropped
- Non, merciNo, thank you
- Pas de problèmeNo problem
ne … pas wraps the verb. Speech drops the ne; writing never does.