conditional and future

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on October 22, 2009 at 3:03am

OK, there are a few things here to clarify.

The first thing is that the conditional is really the equivalent of would, NOT of should. Some grammar books list "should ..." as a possible translation because of old-fashioned phrases like "I should like..." for "I would like...". But in reality, I would really just forget the association between "should" and the conditional-- at least until you're much more familiar with it.

Then, the future/conditional forms of aller are based on the stem ir-. So for example, J'irais means "I'd go" and J'irai means "I'll go". The je forms are actually pronounced identically by practically all speakers, but there's a difference e.g. between on ira ("we'll go") and on irait ("we'd go").

So examples might be e.g.:

J'irais si j'avais assez d'argent
I'd go if I had enough money
J'irais mais j'ai pas d'argent là
I'd go but I'm skint right now
J'irai demain si tu veux
I'll go tomorrow if you like

J'aurai(s) would mean "I'd/I'll have"-- it's the form from avoir.

Note you don't write the y with the future/conditional of aller, even though you're correct that in other tenses, you would need to say e.g. j'y vais (not just je vais on its own).

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Permalink Reply by Pamela Kingfisher on October 22, 2009 at 3:57am

@##$%^/!! I know the future stem for aller! What's wrong with me?? I'm having total melt down test anxiety! Thanks Neil.
Ok, let me try this....
J'aurai assez d'argent demain, alors, nous sortirons demain.

I'll have enough money tomorrow, so we'll go tomorrow.

Is this right?

I am trying to incorporate pronouns too, so thanks for correcting improper usage.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on October 22, 2009 at 7:08am

Your sentence is technically correct-- just remember that nous isn't used very much in everyday speech/e-mails etc (so on sortira would be the usual way of saying we'll go out).

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Permalink Reply by Pamela Kingfisher on October 22, 2009 at 4:48pm

Thank you Neil. On my exam there were questions requiring the nous form, but none with "on."
And yes my 501 French Verbs (Kendris is author) book from the "70's only uses should for the first person, and would for all the others.
I am getting extremely confused with this. It had been too long since I had this grammar, and I had forgotten it.

Il avait eu trop longtemps depuis j'avais la grammaire, et je l'avais oublié.

Is this correct?

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Permalink Reply by jim mccool on October 23, 2009 at 10:15pm

Neil,
I did not know that nous was not used much. I speak French and am going to the Dem. Rep. of the Congo for a short mission trip. I used to teach/preach in French 20 years ago when we lived there. I used nous often. Could you say more about when nous is appropriate?
thanks jim

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on October 24, 2009 at 1:19am

Basically, nous as a subject of the verb is used in relatively formal circumstances (e.g. a formal letter, a formal speech) or occasionally in informal speech for emphasis. In everyday, informal speech between people who address each other as tu, the usual way of saying "we" as the subject of the verb is on, not nous.

Note that I'm talking strictly about nous as the subject of the verb. When not the subject, nous, notre etc are used even in informal speech and accompany on. (The object pronoun is still se, though.) For example:

on le veut pas, nous
we don't want it
on se dépêche là!
can we get a move on!
tu prends ta voiture? on prend la nôtre si tu veux
are you taking your car? we'll take ours if you want

In informal everyday speech among speakers in France, using nous can really sound over-formal.

N.B. Of course, use in Congo may be slightly different-- you should also sound the ground when you're there.

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