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je n'aurai pas dû...

Démarré par mamour, 05 Nov 2007 18:39

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mamour

Hi thomas and all of you!!i have a little probleme for saying "je n'aurai pas pu" et "je n'aurai pas dû     
can you help me please?
Make the most of yourself,for that is all there is of you.

Thomas

hey mamour, thanks for your question! :D

the first one, je n'aurai pas pu, is a little tricky because the modal verb "can", often seen when you are translating from a form of "pouvoir", does not appear here. i would say "i won't have been able to"

Je n'aurai pas pu finir le travail quand le prof sera retourné.
I won't have been able to finish the work when the prof returns. (notice that in English we don't use the future for the second action, but it still occurs after the first action)

as for the second one, it's a bit trickier. "devoir" has lots of different translations based on the context, and the one i would use in this case is "to have to". this gives us "i won't have had to"

Je n'aurai pas dû finir le travail quand le prof sera retourné.
I won't have had to finish the work when the prof returns.

like i indicated earlier, we use the present tense for the second action here, even though its in the future. one way to make sure that the listener understands when the second action takes place would be to use "by the time" instead of "when", for example...

I won't have been able to finish the work by the time the prof returns.
I won't have had to finish the work by the time the prof returns.

does that make sense? if not let me know! (and im not 100% positive my french sentences are correct above either, so if there's a problem with them, let me know that too :D )
Hello, and welcome to Apprendre l'anglais.
Bonjour, et bienvenue à Apprendre l'anglais.

mamour

Hi Thomas thank you for your help!!!I think that I gave you wrong sentences!!
it's not the futur but the conditional
I wrote: je n'aurai pas dû and je n'aurai pas pu or it's
           "je n'auraiS pas dû" and "je n'auraiS pas pu"
that's change the sentence's conjugation,no? :-\

for answering to your question we don't say
-quand le prof sera reourné mais plutôt quand il "s'est" retourné
Ah the french conjugation!!!
même pour nous elle n'est pas simple!!! :D
Make the most of yourself,for that is all there is of you.

Paeleben

Pour répondre à ta question mamour, je pense d'après ce qu'a fait Thomas que seul l'auxiliaire change au début comme ceci :

I would'nt have been able to... (avec la notion de conditionnel, il me semble que would est nécessaire)
pour je n'aurais pas pu...

I wouldn't have had to... pour Je n'aurais pas dû.
Seulement voilà dans ma tête, étant donné que I should do signifie Je devrais faire. Alors pourquoi I should have done ne signifirait-il pas J'aurais dû et ainsi donc dire I should'nt have done pour sa question ?
Peut-être est-il ici question du type de devoir, et à qui il est adressé... Mais c'est vrai que moi-même, je me pose souvent ce type de question avec des formules assez complexes et pourtant si utiles !

En attendant plus d'informations. ;)
Listen to the silence which swings at your ear...

mamour

j'a un peu de mal avec leur conditionnel!!!
Make the most of yourself,for that is all there is of you.

Thomas

En fait, Paeleben a raison, c'est seulement l'auxilliare qui change!

"Je n'aurais pas pu..." -- I wouldn't have been able to...
"Je n'aurais pas dû..." -- I shouldn't have...

One small point though -- those are good translations for those sentence parts -- however, notice how the first one ends in "to" and the second one ends in "have" -- whatever verb comes next is going to be in different forms, for example...

"Je n'aurais pas pu payer l'addition si mon ami ne m'avait pas donné de l'argent" -- I wouldn't have been able to pay (in the infinitive) the bill if my friend hadn't given me money.

"Je n'aurais pas dû donner de l'argent à mon ami parce qu'il l'a tout employé pour aller au restaurant." -- I shouldn't have given (past participle) money to my friend because he used it all to go to a restaurant.

The cause for the difference is that this is not the conditional, but rather the past conditional ;) the auxilliary "would" is required for both, though, like Paeleben said. (In 99% of cases).
Hello, and welcome to Apprendre l'anglais.
Bonjour, et bienvenue à Apprendre l'anglais.

mamour

thank you very much to both of you for you explications :-*
Make the most of yourself,for that is all there is of you.

mamour

I forgave the r your* of course
Make the most of yourself,for that is all there is of you.

Thomas

Oh, and Paeleben -- "I wouldn't have had to" and "I shouldn't have" are similar in meaning, both are obviously in the past, but the first one places the action after another action, whereas the second one simply places the action in the past :) Thiis may or may not help, but perhaps you could think of "I wouldn't have had to give..." as a sort of reverse-pluperfect + past conditional combination. (Of course this is not the "official" way to refer to it ;) )

The reason that this gets tricky, like you said, is the "type of devoir" it is. Devoir is one of those tricky verbs that doesn't translate super efficiently between French and English as I'm sure you've noticed.

"I wouldn't have had to give money to my friend if he hadn't spent all of his."
"I shouldn't have given money to my friend."

I would translate these as...
Je n'aurais pas dû donner de l'argent à mon ami s'il avait pas dépensé tout le sien. (the last part I did not translate well -- perhaps s'il n'en avait pas tout dépensé ??)
Je n'aurais pas dû donner de l'argent à mon ami.

As we were talking about before, "would" is used to mark the conditional in 99% of cases. However, the auxilliary "should" can be used to mark the conditional of the verb "devoir", as well.

"Je dois..." -- I have to...
"Je devrais..." -- I should... OR I would have to...

but normally it goes like this:

"J'écris..." -- I'm writing...
"J'écrirais..." -- I would write...
Hello, and welcome to Apprendre l'anglais.
Bonjour, et bienvenue à Apprendre l'anglais.

Paeleben

many many thanks for you explanations ! It's enormous how you explain easily English grammar. Now I think it's really better in my mind and I hope that I will be able to use this complex forms as well and fluently.  ;)

And about the second part of your translation, it's nearly perfect : I think we would say in french :

- Je n'aurais pas dû donner de l'argent à mon ami s'il n'avait pas dépensé tout le sien.

You can also use this end : s'il ne l'avait pas complètement dépensé. What is better than s'il n'en avait pas tout dépensé, which is not really correct. But both are not good 'cause we don't see the fact that it's his own monney (I'm not sure it's correct but I try...  ???).

But !  :P There is something that is the best of the best to show the link between the first part and the second one like this :
- Je n'aurais pas dû donner de l'argent à mon ami tant qu'il n'avait pas complètement dépensé le sien.

There is something similar in english with "as long as" but I don't know if we can use it for this case.

Thx again !  :)
Listen to the silence which swings at your ear...

mamour

thank you!!! mais maintenant il va falloir que cela rentre dans me petit crane de piaf
Make the most of yourself,for that is all there is of you.