Billy Bosworth's Page

I am trying to translate the following into French: They were part of high society, or rather they thought so.It's the bit at the end I'm really hung up on - the "penser" bit. Ils faisaient partie de la haute société, ou plutôt ils le pensaient or ... ils s'en pensaient?I would like to think that the second option (using "en") is correct, but it is correct to use "se penser"?Also can there be situations where "penser" takes a direct object. ie. je le pense...?It may be that I am trying to…See More

In discussions on France Culture I have recently heard "avec" as the last word in a sentence. It sounded rather strange, and I think it was spoken by a French native. Unfortunately, I can't remember the whole sentence, but is this good French grammar? I have always thought that in French it's not acceptable to use a preposition to end a sentence with. :-)See More

I am trying to come up with a general rule of thumb regarding the usage of these 2 verbs. For a start I have difficulty reconciling "se <infinitive>" where there is a clear direct object, but I have seen numerous instances where this has been used. "Trump s'attaque à John McCain...". Very often "s'attaquer" is used to convey the thought of "tackling" something. But I finish up with wondering why we need "attaquer", as the "reflexive" version seems to fit all/most cases. Here are a couple…See More

This is the sentence to be translated: They will ring when they get there. I am aware of a "rule" (?) which states that in the case of 2 future tenses/actions, the French has to make a distinction between them and show that one action has to be completed before the other. In this case, they have to perform the action of "getting there" before they can perform the action of "ringing".  This means that you can't simply put them both in the future, as there would be no distinction.So the following…See More