L'inde

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Permalink Reply by Frank on July 21, 2009 at 4:58pm

This apparent "obligation" actually comes from the brainwashing we had at school.

At school, French teachers love to spot this kind of thing. "ahah, you've made that rookie mistake, Sorry, it's a mistake, it's written in the grammar book, no contestation is possible".

My 9 years-old daughter is always interrupting us when we say "c'est" instead of "ce sont" with a plural. Indeed, she's right because it's in the book, and I suppose her teacher insisted on this, because it was on the book and because she was supposed to learn rules, that are actually obsolete, but that make you sound more educated if you happen to apply them.

In contexts such as emailing friends, blog postings, etc. it's perfectly right to say "j'ai été" or "c'est + plural".

However, if you're writing a column, if you're applying for a job, if your blog is something a recruiter might look at, you should never say "c'est + plural" nor "j'ai été". Yes, it's blindly stupid since this is what we always use in speech. But writing this could be interpreted as a lack of education because you're writing the same way as you're speaking. It all depends on the company you are applying for, but seriously, if we ever receive a resume or a letter with "j'ai été", I think we would choke on this. It's a bit like writing "wanna" or "gonna" on a formal letter. It's perfectly acceptable, it has gone mainstream, but still, you shouldn't write this in some contexts.

I agree with you, this kind of rule is totally obsolete and offbeat with the reality. And it's going to die. And focusing on this is a waste of time to people who just want to speak French or to write emails/text messages/personal blog postings. But in other contexts, it's like a spelling error. It doesn't matter as anyone can understand the meaning of a text with spelling errors. However, we still learn how words are spelled.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on July 22, 2009 at 4:48pm

Frank, it sounds like we're more or less on the same page.

So given what you've said, my point would then be that the word "mistake" is a bit misleading or ambiguous for learners.

Saying en l'Inde is a "mistake" in the sense that it's ungrammatical-- as far as I'm aware, all native French speakers would judge it not to be well-formed French.

But saying/writing j'ai été à Nancy is only a "mistake" if you're deliberately subscribing to some rule or judgement that classifies it as such.

So I think it's clearer for learners if we're more objective and avoid words like "mistake" and instead be more explicit. Is a particular form ungrammatical, like en l'Inde? Or is it generally considered informal, slang, formal, poetic, old-fashioned, uneducated/substandard etc?

Note that j'ai été differs from English wanna, gonna in that in French, it is normal to write the former in informal contexts generally, whereas English wanna are generally only used in situations where you're deliberately trying to represent a particular pronunciation (e.g. subtitles, direct speech in novels).

Another interesting thing to consider is that even the prescriptive views of je suis allé vs j'ai été actually differ. Thomas (1970) considers either to be a "forme correcte" (p. 54), but cites two previous authors with differing judgements (p. 24):

"En fait, [...] les deux expressions sont employées indifféremment. J'ai été est considéré par les uns (Martinon) comme du langage familier; d'autres (Brunot et Bruneau) pensent que je suis allé a quelque chose de prétentieux."

So whose view "should" you follow? Whose view will the prospective employer that you mention actually be following (if they are even following any)? Will your blog reader really find je suis allé pretentious? Who knows. But what there certainly isn't is an "absolute truth" here that warrants simplisticly brandishing the word "mistake".

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on July 21, 2009 at 11:21pm

Neil
I would agree with your comments.
I don't have time to write a reply at the moment.

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