Opinion

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Permalink Reply by Frank on June 24, 2009 at 10:47pm

Hello Crack1,

"Hier j'ai joué au basketball" indeed means that yesterday, I played basketball. There's no surprise here, and probably I'll play basketball again.

"Hier, j'ai joué au basketball, mon équipe s'est battue et nous avons gagné" (passé composé everywhere).


Now, if I said "Hier je jouais au basketball", it wouldn't be wrong.

But it can mean two things:
- either that I can't play any more (for any reason. Maybe a broken leg, maybe I was sacked from the team, ...)
- either that I was playing basketball, then something unusual happened (maybe "and I saw an UFO").

In both cases, if you say "hier je jouais au basketball", people listening to you are waiting for the end of the sentence. Or at least for the end of the story.

"Hier je jouais au football. Maintenant je ne peux plus jouer, car ma jambe est cassée"

"Hier je jouais au football, quand tout à coup, j'ai vu un OVNI".
The grammatically correct form would be continuous: "Hier j'étais en train de jouer au football, quant tout à coup j'ai vu un OVNI". But in this context, using the imparfait is very usual.

Permalink Reply by Crack1 on June 25, 2009 at 12:04am

Frank

"Hier, j'ai joué au basketball, mon équipe s'est battue et nous avons gagné"

How do you translate the above into English?

Yesterday I played basketball and my team was beaten and we won. ( This is nonsense in English.)

Permalink Reply by Frank on June 25, 2009 at 12:22am

Hello,

"mon équipe s'est battue" doesn't mean that my team was beaten, but that we fought hard.

"s'est battue" is the passé composé for "se battre".

"se battre" means "to fight".

Compare:

"mon équipe s'est battue" (= my team fought). The verb is "se battre" [to fight]

with:

"mon équipe a été battue" (= my team was beaten). The verb is "battre" [to beat]

Other examples:

"mon équipe a battu les Tigres" (= my team has beaten the Tigers)
"mon équipe a été battue par les Tigres" (= my team has been beaten by the Tigers)
"mon équipe s'est battue contre les Tigres" (= my team fought against the Tigers)

These little words, aka "pronoms réfléchis" ("se", "s'", "m'", "t'") can totally change the meaning of a verb.

Permalink Reply by Crack1 on June 25, 2009 at 9:49pm

Thanks Frank

I have forgotten a lot of French words.

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