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In this sentence, is "c'est" necessary?
La dernière fois que j'ai fait les magasins, c'est, il y a 2 jours. .......
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on
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No, and I wonder if "c'est-à-dire" would be more common?
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Permalink Reply by Une on
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Merci Neil. But this is what a French man gave me. He is about 80 and I wonder if this is the language of his era. Une
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See my comment belolw -- I was assuming it was a partial sentence. If it's intended to be a complete sentence, then the c'est is correct and necessary, as others have pointed out.
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Permalink Reply by michael memmi on -
No and sorry Neil . But that is wrong
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Permalink Reply by Frank on
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Hello,
Sorry to contradict you, but La ... fois que ..., c' + être... is something you hear a lot, even from young people.
La dernière fois que j'ai fait les courses, c'était samedi.
La prochaine fois que je verrai ma famille, ce sera ce week-end.
Using the present ("la dernière fois, c'est il y a deux jours") is a bit weird here, I would have used the past instead, but using the present instead of another tense sometimes happens in casual speech.
This construction doesn't look very different from
Le rouge, c'est celui que je préfère
Les Red Sox, ce sont ceux qui vont gagner
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Permalink Reply by michael memmi on
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I dont agree with your reply.
If you use ' J ai fait ' It is as replacing with laziness the proper and precise word by ' Got'. If you use the handy 'faire' Yes , of course you would be understood but it could also mean you built, you manufactured.
Then you should say : Le rouge EST celui que je prefere
and Les Red Sox sont ceux qui vont gagner
ready for more explanation
nice day in Cannes France Today lol
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Le rouge EST celui que je prefere. Les Red Sox sont ceux qui vont gagner.
Hello Michael,
This is grammatically perfect and this is what should always be written, or said in formal speech.
But in informal speech using "c'est" instead of "est" is common if you don't want to sound snoby.
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Ah sorry, I think I misread the original-- I was assuming that it wasn't a complete sentence (because of the ellipsis "..." at the end).
Sure, if it's intended to be a complete sentence, then it has to be c'est. I don't quite understand what the ellipsis was for in that case, though.
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Frank,
I have no problem with the construction of the following 4 sentences you quoted:
- La dernière fois que j'ai fait les courses, c'était samedi.
- La prochaine fois que je verrai ma famille, ce sera ce week-end.
- Le rouge, c'est celui que je préfère
- Les Red Sox, ce sont ceux qui vont gagner
But "La dernière fois que j'ai fait les magasins, c'est, il y a 2 jours.", I somehow can't see how "c'est" should be there and in fact with "c'est" followed by "il y a", it sounds double Dutch.
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