La et lui

1. Je l'ai recontrée au cinéma.

I met her at the cinema.

The feminine nature is obvious to a person with very little knowledge of French because the verb 'recontrée'. I have a smattering of French. I must confess it.

If it was man, I think it should be the following:

2. Je lui ai recontre au cinéma.
I met him at the cinema.

Is the second sentence fine?

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on July 24, 2009 at 7:50pm

It actually turns out that the masculine version would be practically the same (and sound identical for all or practically all French speakers).

Underlyingly, le essentially means him and la her (they're also used to mean it when referring to a masculine/feminine object):

Je le vois.
I (can) see him
Je la vois.
I (can) see her

Now, in your sentence, la becomes l' before a vowel (ai in this case). But so does le. So in either case, the sentence would be:

Je l'ai rencontré(e) au cinéma

The -e is added in the spelling in the feminine case. But the only dialect of French that I'm aware of where this might make a pronunciation difference is in Basse Normandie, where reportedly the -ée ending can have a longer vowel. I'm not sure if speakers naturally make this distinction in this particular case, though, and whether it's discriminatory (my hunch is that it's doubtful). Certainly in standard French, there is absolutely no difference and the sentence is just ambiguous between him/her (as far as pronunciation is concerned).

The word lui (used as a clitic before the verb) essentially means "to him/her". For example:

Je lui ai donné un livre
I gave him a book (="to him")

Occasionally, you'll see examples such as:

Ça lui plaît.
That pleases him (i.e. "He likes it.")

But what's happening here is that the verb plaire actually takes an object with à (plaire à qn). In other words, literally you're saying "It is pleasing to him".

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on July 24, 2009 at 8:13pm

Thanks Neil
Je l'ai rencontré au cinéma.

So if it is a man the above is the correct one.

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Permalink Reply by Frank on July 25, 2009 at 8:35am

Yes, exactly.

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on July 25, 2009 at 7:06pm

Neil wrote the following:

Je lui ai donné un livre.
I gave him a book (="to him")

If I gave the book to her, would you write the above sentence?

I guess the following is the correct one.
Je la ai donnée un livre. or rather Je l'ai donnée un livre.

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Permalink Reply by Frank on July 25, 2009 at 8:34pm

I gave her a book = Je lui ai donné un livre

Yes, it this case ("to someone"), "lui" works both for masculin and feminin.

But:

Je suis allé au cinéma avec lui (I went to the teather with him)
Je suis allé au cinéma avec elle (I went to the teather with her)

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Permalink Reply by Pamela Kingfisher on July 25, 2009 at 9:09pm

Hi again Frank!
"teather" you mean "theater" in English. We know what you mean though!!
And we pronounce it 'thee UH ter"

Bises, Pam

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Permalink Reply by Frank on July 25, 2009 at 9:42pm

Oh thanks a million for pointing this out, Pam.

Btw, I'm writing something in order to help you with the subjunctive. It ain't no homework, but a couple of examples covering different cases for the subjunctive. May I send it to you by email?

Bises :)

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on July 25, 2009 at 9:43pm

Thanks Frank
I think French is a tricky language.
I am grateful that you thought me the difference in the following sentences.

Je suis allé au cinéma avec lui. ---> with him
Je suis allé au cinéma avec elle. ----> with her

You have made a minute error.
....both for masculine and feminine.

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Permalink Reply by Frank on July 25, 2009 at 10:07pm

Since words genders don't really exist in English, I wrote "masculin" and "feminin" in French.

When learning a foreign language, that features a specific grammar, I think it's quite confusing to translate foreign terms into your mother tongue. If you read a French grammar book, you'll never find any reference to "indirect complementary object" or whatever it's called in a French lessons books for English speakers. In a French lessons book for Spanish speakers, the same thing will be called a totally different name.

On this forum, there are people from everywhere, and it might be very confusing if they see different terms here, in their book and in French books.
In my English books, while they target French students, tenses are called "past perfect", "simple past", "present continuous", etc. I don't even know if any book uses French terms for these, since there's no bijectivity between both grammars.

In my humble opinion, using words in a language to describe the grammar of another language is confusing and unnatural. But that's just my opinon, if you feel, and apparently you do, that using "masculine", "subjunctive", etc. is more natural, it's ok. I'm willing to follow whatever convention suits most people.

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Permalink Reply by Crack1 on July 25, 2009 at 10:17pm

Frank

For me, your standard of English is excellent. French is your mother tongue. So it is natural to make a tiny error.
You touched on the English tense 'the present continuous'. I know it is tricky for native French speakers.
Your English is excellent. You should take my word for it.

Permalink Reply by Frank on July 25, 2009 at 10:49pm

Crack1,

Thanks a million for your support. But I know that there's still a looooonnnnnnng way to go, especially since starting to learn a new language when you're 30 is way more difficult than when you're still a child. Rules and vocab can still sink in, but way slower.

In every language, there's a couple of tricky grammar points. It looks like "le subjonctif" is the trickiest point for native English speakers. And you know what? Before I discovered this forum, I never realized how difficult the French grammar was. Not only difficult, but also inconsistent. Tons of complex rules and exceptions.

Kudos to you and to everyone here. Really. Of course, you still make mistakes occasionnally, but if you consider the fact that the French grammar is so overcomplicated, these mistakes are insignificant. OTOH everytime I make a mistake in English, I should slap myself. The challenge doesn't compare to yours.

Anyway, Crack, we can feel that you are still excited about learning French. You keep asking tons of questions. You're trying to build complex sentences, you use a lot of vocabulary, this is wonderful. You really are full of energy and motivation. You'll probably be fluent in French in the very near future.

Permalink Reply by Crack1 on July 26, 2009 at 10:18pm

Frank

You think as you are 30 it will be difficult to grasp nuances in languages.

Even if you are 100, there is no hinder to learn languages.

I have learnt French, German, Russian, Spanish and Latin.
I didn't learn them in 12 months. It took some 10-15 years.

Sometimes I take a Russian course, French course, etc.
I have some plans to go to a Russian course in the autumn.
Everything hinges on other aspects; it should not clash with working hours
and training schedule.
I like Russian and French than German and Spanish.

Je m'entraîne 3 fois par semaine à un gymnase.
I train 3 times a week at a gym.
Have I written the French sentence correctly?

If you live over 100, it will be difficult to train at a gym. You could take a walk if you live over 100. Your muscles will not tolerate the pressure of gym training when you are over 100.

I have trained 90 minutes today . I train calf muscles, triceps, biceps, quadriceps, back muscles. I train using the treadmill to trim the cardiovascular system. It takes time.