'ces'

[Pete Laubscher]

Je n'aime pas aucun de ces films; I don't like any of those films

 

and:

 

Je l'aime plus qu' aucun de ces deux enfants; I like him more than either of these two children

 

Q: ‘ces’  =  both ‘those’ and ‘these’?  If so, when does one translate ‘ces’ as the one rather than the other?

 

Thnks!

[Simon Z]

Hi,

"I don't like any of those films" would be "Je n'aime pas aucun de ces films" car "aucun" a déjà un sens négatif.

" I like him more than either of these two children" = "Je l'aime plus que chacun de ces deux enfants" (I'm not sure for this one)

And yes, "ce" = "this/that" and "ces" = "these/those"
You can translate "ces" as you want it's not very important but in most cases "ces"="these" with direct speech and "ces"="those" with indirect speech.

[Pete Laubscher]

Thnks Simon.

Is that a line through 'pas' that I see?

If so, why?

[Neil Coffey]

If you're a native speaker of English, essentially you translate it with whichever you think sounds more natural in the given case. In everyday usage, French doesn't tend to mark the "distance" difference between this/these and that/those.

Note one case where the difference is marked is where you have a contrast. In that case, you can use the suffixes -ci and -là to mark the elements you're contrasting, e.g.:

Ce livre-ci est une oeuvre de fiction, mais celui-là est une biographie factuelle.

In this case, the items marked by -ci and -là tend to correspond respectively to English this/these and that/those. But even in this case, I think it would be common to drop the -ci and the meaning would still be clear.

As Simon points out, your first sentence isn't actually grammatical unless you remove the word pas. The second sentence is fine at least in fairly formal usage.

[Pete Laubscher]

Thnks Neil, great stuff, as usual.

But: Not sure about refs to 'pas'. Is that when one removes it, the sentence becomes grammatical?

[Neil Coffey]

Sorry, I probably didn't explain it very well. In the first sentence of your post, you have Il n'aime pas aucun de ces films. In this case, aucun would be used on its own, without the pas, so that you get, as indeed Simon mentioned, Il n'aime aucun de ces films.

[Pete Laubscher]

Much obliged.

No not at all - just a bit slow on the uptake!

Thnks! Now understand. Thnks again.