The obligation and order

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Permalink Reply by Frank on June 27, 2009 at 3:42pm

Hello Crack1.

Ok, first one: "You must tell me about French girls".

"Devoir" (must) is always followed by a verb in its infinitive form. Bravo Crack1, this is exactly what you did.

However, "dire" is "to say". What you wrote actually means "You must say me French girls". Doesn't make any sense, so let's tweak it just a little bit.

"to tell" is "parler". and "ma" should be "me".

So here's the final version: "Vous devez me parler des filles françaises".

You were very close. Keep the good work, Crack1!



Next one : "You have an obligation to tell me about French girls"

Wow, yes, it sounds like a legal obligation. Don't say that to a friend, it'd be pretty harsh.

You can translate it as:

"Vous avez l'obligation de..."

(note: "l'obligation" not "une obligation")

Don't use "un devoir". "Un devoir" also means an obligation, but it doesn't work in all contexts, and definitely not in this one (or in another way: "pour devoir").

So, here we go for the final version:

"Vous avez l'obligation de me parler des filles françaises"

or:

"Vous êtes obligés de me parler des filles françaises"

The meaning is exactly the same, but the first one is more formal than the second one.

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Permalink Reply by Frank on June 27, 2009 at 3:55pm

And for the record, if you want to say "You SHOULD tell me about French girls" (and this is probably what you would use most of the time, because you are a smart guy, aren't you?), use the conditional:

"Vous devriez me parler des filles françaises".

This form, just like "should" can also be useful to give an advice:

"Vous devriez faire du sport"
"Vous devriez acheter un iPhone"
"Vous devriez manger des fruits"
"Vous ne devriez pas manger de hamburger"

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on June 28, 2009 at 9:16am

Thanks Frank

"You must say me French girls"
The above is not at all good English.

Say is the standard verb which is used to indicate direct speech in any story.

She said (that) she was going to meet him. (Not: She said me)


The verb tell has to be followed by a direct personal object:
'He told her (that) he loved her.' (Not: He told that he loved her.)
.

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Permalink Reply by Frank on June 28, 2009 at 11:10am

"You must say me French girls" - The above is not at all good English.

Yep, this is why "dire" wouldn't be good French either here. :)

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on June 28, 2009 at 3:03pm

Frank

In English it is always 'interested in' something/someone.

I have 'participated in' a conference.

It is incorrect to say I am interested of someone/something.
It is incorrect to say I have participated at a conference.

The idiom dominates here. We can't alter it.

In French it is always 'obligation de' . It is incorrect to say 'obligation á'.

Avoir l'obligation de faire quelquechose.
Please tell me.

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Permalink Reply by Frank on June 28, 2009 at 3:35pm

Hello Crack1,

Participated in => Participé à
Interested in => Interessé par

And as stated above, it's always "avoir l'obligation DE" or "être obligé DE"

"Vous avez l'obligation de me parler des filles françaises"
"Vous êtes obligés de me parler des filles françaises"

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on June 28, 2009 at 4:26pm

I just want to throw a slight spanner in the works with "obliger" that it's worth knowing about. Fank, presumably you'd agree that when "obliger" is used 'truly as a verb' the preposition is usually "à", not "de". So for example:

Mon chef va m'obliger à travailler ce samedi.

So then, by extension, there's some tendency to use "à" in 'true passives' (i.e. with an agent introduced by par...). So for example, I think the following would be typical choices of prepositions (though contradictory opinions are welcome!):

J'étais obligé de terminer le travail avant samedi.
(obligé essentially an adjective; de used)
J'ai été obligé à terminer ce travail par mon chef.
(ai été obligé a "true passive" verb form; à used)

I think the synonyms forcer and contraindre (and possibly one or two others that don't spring to mind right now) work in a similar way.

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on June 28, 2009 at 4:40pm

Thanks Frank and Neil

So the preposition depends on whether it is avoir or être. It is interesting grammar point.

Interessé par

Je suis interessé par les belles filles. (Hope this is correct!)
I am interested in beautiful girls.

..........................................
Mon chef va m'obliger à travailler ce samedi.
My boss will give me the green light to work on Saturday.
My boss will give his approval for me to work on Saturday.
Have I translated correctly?

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Permalink Reply by Frank on June 28, 2009 at 6:12pm

Je suis interessé par les belles filles. - Absolutely. 100% correct. And fair enough.

Mon chef va m'obliger à travailler ce samedi. - Excellent (the sentence itself, not what your boss asked you do to)

Bravo !

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Permalink Reply by Frank on June 28, 2009 at 6:30pm

I wrote some more examples until I realized what a mess obligé de/à/par actually is. It's way more complex that it looks at first sight.

So here's a rule of thumb.

1) You had to do something.
Use: j'ai été obligé de

2) Someone is forcing you to do something
Use: quelqu'un m'oblige à

past:
3) Someone forced you to do something
Use: quelqu'un m'a obligé à

--

1) - (B) a été obligé de faire (W)
2) - (A) oblige (B) à faire (W)
past:
3) - (A) a obligé (B) à faire (W)


Trying to start with who was forced to do it instead of who asked for it, is tricky.

While Neil's exemple: "J'ai été obligé à terminer ce travail par mon chef." is grammatically correct it sounds very unnatural. No one would say that in real speech. Sounds as if something was wrong in the structure.

John a obligé Jack à lui donner son sac
=> Jack a été obligé par John de lui donner son sac

How come we'd say "de" here and not "à" like in the previous example?
Well... to be fair I don't know why, maybe there's no reliable rule, just real-world usage, but I wouldn't say "à" for sure.

You'd better stick with "John a obligé Jack à lui donner son sac"
(counterpart: Jack a été obligé de donner son sac)

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on June 28, 2009 at 7:35pm

The reason is essentially to do with usage patterns and analogy.

Once upon a time, "obliger à/de" behaved much more like "continuer à/de"-- i.e. there was essentially not real meaning distinction between the two. Littré, for example (a major descriptive dictionary of the mid 1800s and often cited in this kind of comparison) notes:

"Des grammairiens ont voulu distinguer entre obliger à et obliger de suivis d'un infinitif. L'usage n'établit aucune distinction : obliger de faire ou obliger à faire ; l'oreille seule en décide."

Now, one of the factors in "l'oreille seule en décide", is, for example, that writers would avoid using "à" after a verb form ending in -a, including many passé simples. So it would once have been normal to write:

Jean m'obligea de lui donner...

to avoid putting two "a" sounds together (cf. obligea à).

Nowadays, with the passé simple pretty much fallen out of natural usage, a major usage pattern with obliger de in an active form has disappeared, and usage is falling towards using à with active tenses and de with passives, influenced surely by usage with other adjectives such as content/heureux/triste de... etc.

The case that's still a bit in limbo is where you have a passive accompanied by an agent (i.e. the "doer of the action" is mentioned in a phrase par ...), as in my example, where there's a conflict between the adjective + de pattern, and the usage of obliger à when obliger is definitely a conjugated verb (since putting in the agent par ... makes it strongly sound like a "true" passive-- i.e. a conjugated verb, not a "simple adjective"). But it's interesting to note that the use of à sounds unnatural to you, and surely many other speakers will also get the same judgement. (Of course, a confusing factor here is simply that the passive per se isn't always very natural in French-- it can be difficult to judge which of two unnatural alternatives is the more unnatural...)

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on June 30, 2009 at 11:59pm

Frank -- there's another "spanner in the works" that you might be interested in that I forgot to mention.

Think about a sentence such as:

Je suis obligé DE travailler, et mon fiancé Y est obligé aussi.

Notice how logically, you'd generally expect "de" to correspond to "en", not "y", but in practice, only "y" is acceptable.

Queue spooky music.

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