On ne dit pas ‘à l’âge de un an’, mais bien ‘à l’âge d’un an’. l’élision évite le son “euin” jugé malsonnant…de même qu’on ne doit pas dire “la ville de Le Mans”, mais bien la ville du Mans. En ...
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What are those m’ and s’ preceeding words?
Business Editorss’écroule Is from the pronominal verb s’écrouler, in fact we should say se écrouler, like in se faire, se donner. But because écrouler starts with a vowel, the prononciation is pretty hard, that’s why se is shortened to s’. m’importe ...
Comment s’écrit « si il l’avait su » ?
Business EditorsIl n’y a pas de questions à se poser : lorsque si est suivi par “il” ou “ils”, il est toujours remplacé par s’. On appelle cette règle l’élision. Ici, la phrase correcte est donc : Comme s’il l’avait toujours ...
How to contract more than two consecutive contractable words?
Associations EditorsThe correct expression is jusqu’au. I can’t think of many cases with two contractions: qu’au(x), more generally; also d’aujourd’hui. There’s no special rule about them. If there are two places to contract, and they happen to involve the same word, ...
How informal are “t’as” and “t’aimes” and similar contractions of tu?
Associations EditorsIn my case, I may compare this with “wanna” (want to) or “gotta” (got to). It’s faster to speak… But I just say this when I’m with friends, not with my boss… Writing “t’as” is not correct in French, it’s ...
Is the list of words that get elided a closed set?
Associations EditorsOther conjunctions which end in -que should be added to the list : puisque, lorsque, quoique. Elided forms of entre and presque are sometimes used as a prefix. For example, in entr’apercevoir (old orthography), or presqu’ile. Some authors chose to ...
Is “j'” a contracted form of “je”?
Associations EditorsYes, “J’écris” is the contraction of je and écris. Unlike in English, contracted forms in the French language are mandatory. J’ is a Je indeed, but it is not the same as the do not/don’t contraction. In the case of ...
Using d’ and l’ over multiple lines
Business EditorsAll French style guides for editorial practices forbid splitting a word before or after an apostrophe. And they recommend to split the words according to the pronounced syllables. That makes two reasons not to split after l’ or d’. Note ...
Comment « tu es » est devenu « t’es »?
Business EditorsOui, il s’agit bien d’un type d’élision. Elle n’est normalement pas marquée à l’écrit mais se rencontre fréquemment à l’oral, en particulier dans la langue non soutenue. L’élision du u de tu a certainement une origine très ancienne puisqu’on la ...
Why does “Je t’aime” have an elision whereas “Tu es bête” has no elision?
Business EditorsWhen using direct object pronouns that end with a vowel: me te —-> (NOT "tu") le la there should always be an elision. The reason "Tu es bête" is not written (at least formally) "T’es bête" is because it is ...