• DacoTaco@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Wouldnt “je ne sais pas parler francais” be more of a “i dont know speak french”? Like, sounding more gramatically broken?
    The ‘parler’ is in an unconjugated form, i read that like its some broken form hehe

    • ilost7489@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      From what I can find and from what I know, it is grammatically correct however French is not my first language. As an English speaker I would probably go “parler le français”

      • bitMasque@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        That would mean “speaking the French”, so while incorrect, I’m sure people would get what you would be trying to say.

        • ilost7489@lemmy.ca
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          4 months ago

          Ok that’s what I thought thinking back on it. I don’t use french often enough to really be certain all the time

    • bitMasque@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The verb “parler” is indeed supposed to be unconjugated. That’s down to differing grammar and syntax in French and English. If I were to try and translate directly from French to English while maintaining the original sentence structure and whatnot, it would look roughly like this: “I not know not speaking French.”

      …Which is awkward as hell to read, mostly thanks to French splitting negatives into two parts, but you can see how the verb “parler” (speaking or talking) is unconjugated.

      You may also notice how that sentence structure looks more similar to an antiquated way of speaking English, if we tweak that just a little bit: “I know not how to speak French.”