"Ce n'pas" grammer

[Mahmood]

Hello,

Listening to an audio exercise, I here

es/ne/pa/ma/valise
ce/ne/pa/ma/valise

I know that the first one is written as

Ce n'pas ma valise

But how the second one is written? Also wht is the difference between the two?

[Vedas]

Hello,

don't quite understand your question because what you hear is not grammatical :

 the sentence you may have is "Ce n'est pas ma valise"  but I don't have a clue for the other one without clearer elements.

[Neil Coffey]

I suspect that the phrase you are hearing is: Ce n'est pas ma valise.

The 'e' of ce isn't necessarily pronounced (it's basically a special vowel called a "schwa", which may or not be pronounced depending on various factors). But this doesn't affect how the word is written, at least in standard writing.

In everyday speech, you could also have a version without the "ne":

C'est pas ma valise.

The meaning is essentially the same, but said more informally (a bit like the difference between "does not" and "doesn't" in English).

[Mahmood]

Please listen to the following phrases (I have to say it is not exactly what I wrote).

http://www.mediafire.com/listen/zbg96j4vbv1nwbv

http://www.mediafire.com/listen/i0utc8iw4tbbpp4

Can you write the them?

[Vedas]

-non ce n'est pas un petit jardin

-ce n'est pas un petit jardin

[Mahmood]

I am pretty sure that there are two sounds

/es/ne/pa

and

/no/ce/ne/pas

But you wrote only "ce n'est pas". Do you read that with both /es/ne/pa and /ce/ne/pa

[Neil Coffey]

Hi Mahmood -- I've just had a listen to the examples you posted and I think what might be confusing you is the thing I mentioned earlier: that the "e" of "ce" (or indeed the "e" of "petit") is not necessarily pronounced. In the second of your examples, that's exactly what is happening: the speaker pronounces it as "c' n'est pa(s) un p'tit jardin". But in standard writing, you would still write "Ce n'est pas un petit jardin".

[Mahmood]

So if I understand correctly, both audios are saying one thing. However, is up to the speaker to decide which one to use.

As a result, the word "Ce n'est pas" is sometimes pronounced like "ce" like this and sometimes is pronounced like "es" like this.

[Neil Coffey]

Yes, although I don't know why you write "es" -- in the second case, it's just as "s" sound -- no "e" vowel at the beginning.

It's "up to the speaker" which pronunciation they use (or rather, whether they omit the "e" vowel) in the sense that without thinking about it, they automatically do or don't depending on a host of complex factors that they have intuitively picked up as part of acquiring French as their native language: rhythm, speaking speed, formality, the surrounding sounds...

If you're interested, in this article on the pronunciation of the French letter 'e', I go into what those factors are in a little more detail -- but it is a slightly complex area of French pronunciation.