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Please could someone tell me if these sentences are correct and please could you explain why it's ce que in the first sentence and que in the second.  (if indeed I am correct!)

Je ne savais pas ce que j'ai voulu faire

I didn't know what I wanted to do

 

On ne peut pas y faire du patinage que j'aime faire

You can't do skating there which I like to do

 

Thank you

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In general, que refers to a specific thing/person, whereas ce que refers to a general idea. (In technical terms, que has a noun as its antecedent, whereas ce que has a clause.)

So in fact, ce que would be the appropriate choice in both of these sentences.

In your first sentence, be careful of the tenses:

Je ne savais pas ce que je voulais faire.

OK.  So in my second example the "ce que" would refer to the "faire du patinage" which is the idea/clause and not le (du) patinage which is a noun?     (This was why I initially chose que rather than ce que)

Also I've read... Ce que j'aime c'est le sport....    Please could you explain why ce que is used here?

Also can you please explain why I would use je voulais faire?

 

Thank you.

I think in this case it would be odd to "refer to" du patinage, because you're referring to the concept in general, so it's more natural to refer as you say to the whole notion faire du patinage. I must say I'm not sure that this example is actually very idiomatic French, though -- I wonder if speakers would be more likely to say "...et j'aime bien ça" or, a bit more formally, "...et c'est un sport/une activité que j'aime".

In your next example, you have a slightly different use of ce que -- it effectively means "the thing which...". In such a case, the choice is to use ce qui... as the subjcet or ce que... as the object.

In your other example, it's a bit odd to use the imperfect tense savais in the first half of the sentence and then use the perfect tense in the second half. It's a bit like if you said in English: "At that moment I didn't know what I've wanted to do"-- savais refers to your "general state of not knowing at that moment, without focussing on the point at which you started/stopped not knowing", while ai voulu views the action as being a "completed" event. So there's a clash of point of view, if that makes any sense.

Hi there,

Neil is perfectly right.

In fact your second sentence is a bad exemple because we would not say it that way and if I had to translate literally into French, I'd probably say someting like "on ne peut pas y faire du patinage, ce que j'aime faire" (but that doesn't sound nice).

As Neil correctly explained, "ce que" refers to something specific, very concrete, while "que" refers to a general situation. That's why, as a rule, if you can replace by "la chose que" (I think it also work with "what it is that" in English) and it still makes sense, then you should use "ce que".

For example, you would say "Je ne savais pas ce que tu allais me dire" (la chose que tu allais me dire - I didn't know what was it that you were to tell me), mais "Je ne savais pas que j'étais enceinte ( je ne savais pas la chose que j'étais enceinte does not make any sense).

Some other examples with similar sentences:

Ce que j'aime chez toi, c'est...  = La chose que j'aime chez toi, c'est... (What it is that I like about you is...)

J'aime que tu me prennes dans tes bras (J'aime la chose que tu me prennes dans tes bras does not make any sense)

J'aime ce que tu fais = J'aime les choses que tu fais (I like what is it that you do)

Ce que j'aime, c'est le sport = La chose que j'aime (le plus), c'est le sport

Hope that helps a bit ;-)

Thank you both, this has really helped to clarify things for me.  You have been more use than any grammar book I've ever found!

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