Is this correct grammar

I read somewhere this phrase " un siècle nous contemple...........' Is this correct I though after Nous - it ends with the 'on' .

Ce qui vous faut - what does this mean?

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Permalink Reply by Erwan on August 9, 2011 at 3:03pm

un siècle nous contemple : The subject is un siècle and nous is the direct object. It's then the 3rd singular person and not the 1st plural one.

ce qui vous faut : the right sentence is ce qu'il vous faut wich means "what you need "

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Permalink Reply by yong leong on August 9, 2011 at 4:37pm

Yes Erwan I never have much problem with english because we use it so often even during our childhood, so when we come to french it is a lot of mental activities, guesswork and sometimes waiting to see how often certain expression comes up. Yes, I actually do look out for certain expression to see if it is common.

At first I thought it was "a century we contemplate" - but it is not that expression.

I get confused if I think more about it, so I will leave it alone for a while and come back later ( one month or one year) and it will make sense by then, that is if this phrase comes up again in my life time.

It is funny there is one book called "Le Oreiller Porcelaine" written by a french author- I find this book so easy to understand I was kind of surprised because this is not a french beginner's or intermediate level book, yet I am able to understand a lot of what he wrote. I think it is the way this author wrote and his choice of words. I just love that book. I keep going back to the bookshop to read it and I may be buying it soon. Just to be sure I will read a bit more before I buy it.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on August 9, 2011 at 3:19pm

Yes, it's correct. The slightly confusing thing is that "nous" can be used in two ways:

(1) it can be used as the subject of the verb, roughly equivalent to "we" in English. So if you say "nous contemplons", it means "we contemplate...";

(2) it can be used as the object of the verb, roughly equivalent to "us" in English, in which case there'll be another subject in the sentence (in this case "un siècle")-- so in this case, "a century contemplates us..." (I´d have to see the whole text to see exactly what they really mean, but grammatically speaking, that's the idea).

As for "ce qui vous faut", the standard spelling of this is "Ce qu'il vous faut", and it basically means "what you need".

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Permalink Reply by yong leong on August 9, 2011 at 4:21pm

Thanks Neil, I think I got what you said.

The "ce qu'il vous faut' - which you said means "what you need" -this phrase appears strange to me, I guess it's because I am still not good in french so haven't got use to many expression. Is it used often this phrase?

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Permalink Reply by Erwan on August 9, 2011 at 4:35pm

This phrase is quite common. You can see it for exemple in furniture assembly instructions (tools list).

You can also put a verb after :

Ce qu'il vous faut savoir : what you need to know

Ce qu'il vous faut faire : what you need to do.

Ce qu'il vous faut prendre en compte : what you need to consider

This list is not exhautive

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Permalink Reply by yong leong on August 9, 2011 at 5:09pm

Very kind of you to give these few phrases, it helps tremendously to reinforce the memory.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on August 9, 2011 at 4:59pm

It might help if you break it down literally as follows:

Ce qu' il faut

That which it takes/requires

In English "That which it takes", while maybe one of the most literal translations and just about possible, isn't very idiomatic. But in French, it's a perfectly everyday-sounding phrase.

If you replace "that which" with "what", then the English obviously sounds better ("What it takes is..."), but the actual structure of the French is closer to "that which".