La phrase négative / The negative sentence

Compare the following sentences:

Je suis français.

Elle habite à Paris.

Vous parlez japonais

Je ne suis pas français.

Elle n’habite pas à Paris.

Vous ne parlez pas japonais.

The sentences on the right are negative sentences. To make a negative sentence in French, we use two words, ne and pas. Ne is placed immediately before the verb and pas immediately after the verb:
ne + verb + pas

You probably noticed that the first word, ne, has two different forms: ne and n’. In the second of the above examples, I used n’ instead of ne. Do you have any idea why ? Look at the following sentences and try to figure out the rule:

 

Je ne mange pas au restaurant.

Elles ne dansent pas avec moi.

Vous ne fumez pas.

Nous ne visitons pas Paris.

Tu ne parles pas japonais.

Elle n’est pas française.

Tu n’as pas de chance.

Ils n’ont pas d’enfants.

Je n’utilise pas le dictionnaire.

Tu n'habites pas à Tokyo.

Yes, that's right! In the second column, all the verbs begin with a vowel sound (yes, even habites: there's no "h" sound in French). So whenever the verb begins with a vowel sound, we use n’ instead of ne. The n’ is then read with the first vowel of the verb: they combine together to make one syllable. You must not make a pause between n’ and the verb.

 

you see

you read

n’habite

n’est

n’arrivons

n’êtes

[nabit]

[ne]

[narivõ]

[net]

One last thing: in spoken French, we often skip the "ne" and use only the "pas". So instead of saying "je ne mange pas au restaurant", we usually say "je mange pas au restaurant".

To summarize:
  • To make a negative sentence, put ne before the verb and pas after it.
  • Change ne to n' before a vowel sound.

 

 

 

 You can now try to do the exercises! (printable version)

 

[cours] [fiches de grammaire]