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Donner?


Pads
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Hello

If I want to say :

They would not give me a car = Ils ne me donner pas une voiture .

Which tense of donner would I use? Is it the perfect or imperfect ? I think its donnaient. Does that look right ?   

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but they did = mais ils ???? which tense am I looking for here ?[:(]

God you can tell I have been away from my books for 2 weeks

sweet 17 I havnt heard that before are you sure ? [8-)]  

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Hi Sweet 17,

 

I'm not too sure, I think some verbs are followed by either de or à, depending on the context, and some verbs don't need to be followed by anything. But not sure about donner, I'll have a look in the dictionary.

 

Ysatis.

PS, I'm still only a learner and may have things wrong!

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[quote user="sweet 17"]

Ysatis

Don't you have to say "pas de voiture"?  Isn't it always de after pas?

[/quote]

 

Correct After ne........pas any idefinite artice (un(e) du de la des ) preceding a direct object becomes de.

Where un(e) appears before a direct object after ne...pas it means not one ,rather than not a .

So you would be saying  They would not give me one car

You could say   Il n'a pas voulu me donner de vouture

He wouldn't give me a car

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[quote user="Pads"]

but they did = mais ils ???? which tense am I looking for here ?[:(]

God you can tell I have been away from my books for 2 weeks

sweet 17 I havnt heard that before are you sure ? [8-)]  

[/quote]

Any ideas on this bit ? [:)]

I have just looked back through my past home works and I see a bit about de after ne ... pas . thanks for spotting that S17[:)]

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[quote user="Pads"]

Thanks Ysatis now I have looked up what conditional means [;-)] I think you might be right

So :

Ils ne me donneraient pas une voiture = They would not give me a car

Ta lass[:)]  

[/quote]

If you have a would/could/should then there is no translation for this word - you use the conditional tense.

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I wouldn't use the conditional to express "they wouldn't give me........", because "would" in this case means willingness.

I'd say "ils ne voulaient pas me donner........."  or "ils n'ont pas voulu me donner.......", depending on the importance of that action.

You could use the conditional if the sentence was "they told me they wouldn't give me........"   "ils m'ont dit qu'ils ne me donneraient pas.......".

 

 

 

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