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question, negatif
Hi. Just a brief question: Which sentence of the two following is correct (if any^^)?
1. 'Pourquoi ne veux-tu pas aller être un mécanicien?'
2.'Pourquoi tu ne veux pas aller être un mécanicien?'
in case these sentences don't make sense, I'm trying to say 'Why don't you want to become a mechanic?'
thanks heaps.
1. 'Pourquoi ne veux-tu pas aller être un mécanicien?'
2.'Pourquoi tu ne veux pas aller être un mécanicien?'
in case these sentences don't make sense, I'm trying to say 'Why don't you want to become a mechanic?'
thanks heaps.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on
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As far as the actual question form is concerned, both forms are possible in principle. But note that aller être un wouldn't be used like that-- the questions would actually become:
(1) Pourquoi ne veux-tu pas être/devenir(/faire) mécanicien?
(2) Pourquoi tu ne veux pas être/devenir/faire mécanicien?
Either of these three verbs is possible, but you only need one of them, and you wouldn't genearlly use the word un in this case. (Of the three, faire is slightly informal, so that-- for the reason below-- it arguably wouldn't be that likely in (1).)
The difference between the two question forms is that (1) is a formal style of language, while (2) is very informal. If you won't a more "neutral" style (not too informal or formal), then you can insert est-ce que into (2):
(2') Pourquoi est-ce que tu ne veux pas être/devenir/faire mécanicien?
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