Re: Une Question

From: "Douglas Koller, Latin & French" <latinfrench@...>
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2004 9:37 PM
Subject: Une Question


> This question came up today in French class, to which I had to reply,
> "I have no idea." I then posed it to the native speaker here in
> school, to which she replied, "Aucune idée." So maybe someone here
> knows.
>
> How do you handle a quote within a quote in French? In other words,
> *punctuation-wise*, what do you do with a sentence like:
>
> When our teacher told us, "Caesar said, 'Veni, vidi, vici,'" I was
> utterly flabbergasted.
>
> ?
>
> Kou
>
Hey!

Forgive me if this has already been answered, but I receive digests, not
single postings, so I guess all the French participants already have
answered your question.

I'd simply say (and I'm sure all the Frenchmen here will agree), plain and
simple: Je ne sais pas. I don't know.

To give some more examples:

I don't know anymore: Je ne sais plus
I don't know anything: Je ne sais rien
I don't know except ...: Je ne sais que
I never know: Je ne sais jamais

As for the guillemets, ils sont ALT+0171 for << and ALT+0187 for >>.

So far,

Carsten

=========================

Class test: Si on pouvait apprendre le français en dormant, ...
I wrote:    ... des générations d'élèves ne se revailleraient plus.

My website:   http://www.beckerscarsten.de/
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