structure of a sentence

Hi,

I'm curious about the part in bold in the sentence:

Je ne l’ai pas vu, mais rien qu’à voir la bande annonce

Is it a general rule that, following que with a verb, a preposition of à is put? When, and why is à put? and what about when it is read...for example "qu'etre?" (excuse the lack of accent)

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on August 18, 2012 at 11:48pm

At first glance, this can look slightly confusing, but they're actually independent structures.

One use of "à" followed by a verb in French is to mean something similar to "by ...-ing", "upon ...-ing" in English. And specifically, "à voir..." mans something like "judging by ...", "judging by the look of...".

Then, "rien que" is a way of saying "just", "simply".

So the meaning is something like "just by looking at the banner trailer", "simply from how the banner trailer looks", "just judging by the banner trailer".

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EducatorPermalink Reply by George Hunt on August 19, 2012 at 12:33am

Doesn't "bande annonce" just mean a (film) trailer?

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on August 19, 2012 at 3:07am

Sorry, misread the post! Yes, it does!

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Key StudentPermalink Reply by Peter En on August 19, 2012 at 12:42pm

I just wanted to thank the both of you for the continued help. I cannot express how profoundly helpful both of you have been to me- I understand that I've asked quite a lot of questions this year and it's just been a big help, especially now that there are only a few months before my final french exams!

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on August 19, 2012 at 1:39pm

You're very welcome -- the more questions, the merrier! It's everybody's interesting questions that keeps this forum alive!