Commencer

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Permalink Reply by Frank on September 25, 2009 at 9:21pm

Commencer à.

Although in informal speech you can sometimes hear "commencer de" (but still it would be "commencer d'étudier").

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on September 26, 2009 at 1:57am

Usually, use "à". Then just be aware:
- some authors like to use "de" to avoid a verb ending with -a directly followed by à-- e.g. "il commença d'étudier", where "commença" is the past historic -- essentially a past tense used only in a classical style of writing
- historically, there may have been a slight difference, where "de" suggested the beginning of a temporary action.

In reality, though, à is far more normal nowadays. Certainly, if you use "à", I don't think anybody will ever accuse you of "getting it wrong", whereas "de" may sometimes sound strange.

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on September 26, 2009 at 7:37pm

Thanks Neil
I have seen the words 'commencer de'. That is why I asked the forum.

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Permalink Reply by adel on September 26, 2009 at 10:55pm

I think you can say il a ......... D'etudier e avec accent grave je pense?

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Permalink Reply by Frank on September 28, 2009 at 9:20am

Hi Adel,

"Il à commencé" would be wrong.

"a commencé" is the passé composé tense, "a" being the auxiliary. And when "a" is a verb, it never has any accent.

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Permalink Reply by adel on September 28, 2009 at 1:12pm

Hi Frank

I was talking about the e of étudier

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Permalink Reply by Frank on September 28, 2009 at 1:23pm

Hi Adel,

This accent: é is called accent aigu.

That one: à is called accent grave.

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Permalink Reply by adel on September 28, 2009 at 1:25pm

Thanks Frank

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