Kittycat Posted May 12, 2005 Share Posted May 12, 2005 Salut,I'd like to say: "we went to his place so that I could give him his gift....."I'm stuck after " nous sommes allés chez lui pour..."I thought originally it would be the passé compose ..." pour je lui ai donné son cadeau..", because I've been told to keep the same tense in sentence construction, then I thought maybe it should be something like the conditional perfect or future perfect and now I'm really confused. I'd be grateful for any help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patf Posted May 12, 2005 Share Posted May 12, 2005 Why not just use the infinitive , "to give him his gift", "...lui donner son cadeau." Pat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kittycat Posted May 12, 2005 Author Share Posted May 12, 2005 So I've been trying to make it more complicated than necessary; I hadn't realised that the infinitive was a correct option. thanks Pat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meo Posted May 12, 2005 Share Posted May 12, 2005 "pour lui donner son cadeau" is the way I would say it.But I guess you could get fancy and use the subjunctive:(pour que je puisse lui donner son cadeau) - which, strictly speaking, should be in the imperfect subjunctive but don't ask me what that is!! (pusse???) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kittycat Posted May 12, 2005 Author Share Posted May 12, 2005 Oh no; not the dreaded subjunctive. I'd do anything to avoid that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quantum Posted May 12, 2005 Share Posted May 12, 2005 Oui tout à fait, il faut éviter le subjonctif si on peut. Après "pour" c'est toujours l'infinitif donc c'est une bonne nouvelle!Quantum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M Posted May 12, 2005 Share Posted May 12, 2005 [quote]"pour lui donner son cadeau" is the way I would say it. But I guess you could get fancy and use the subjunctive: (pour que je puisse lui donner son cadeau) - which, strictly speaking, should be in t...[/quote]If you were to use the imperfect subjunctive in speech, I expect people would fall about laughing. It would sound incredibly pretentious! The imperfect subjunctive is not used in modern spoken French, even if strictly speaking the grammar of the sentence would require it!M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kittycat Posted May 24, 2005 Author Share Posted May 24, 2005 Thought I'd follow this up with the correction made by my French teacher. He said it's:''...pour que je lui donne (subj)...son cadeau'' Thanks to all for your suggestions & help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chicfille Posted May 24, 2005 Share Posted May 24, 2005 [quote]Thought I'd follow this up with the correction made by my French teacher. He said it's: ''...pour que je lui donne (subj)...son cadeau'' Thanks to all for your suggestions & help.[/quote]Just for the record, "pour lui donner" is also correct French, just 2 different ways of saying the same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kittycat Posted May 26, 2005 Author Share Posted May 26, 2005 In that case, I'll stick to the form, pour lui donner in my spoken french - much easier to use in similar constructions than his suggestion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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