Re: French transitivity etc.

"Perdre" is definitely transitive (to lose), but there
also is the reflexive form "se perdre" = to get lost.
"Je suis perdu(e)" = I am (in a state of) lost.
"J'ai perdu mon argent" = I have lost my money.

"J'ai regardé" (passé composé) is normally a
perfective ("je regardais" being imperfect[ive]). It
can be translated by "I watched" or "I have watched"
(or: I did watch...) One uses more and more the passé
composé instead of the passé simple "je regardai",
which is only used by now in books and at the Académie
française...

"J'avais regardé" = I had watched
"J'aurais regardé" = I would have watched
"J'aurais été regardé" = I would have been watched
"Regarder" = to watch, to look at (ex: TV)
"Surveiller" = to keep an eye on
"Garder" = to keep
"Voir" = to see

"I watched" can be in French: je regardais
(imperfective; but that would rather be "I was
watching"); je regardai / j'ai regardé (perfective).
The very notions of perfective and imperfective are
little used in French grammars, we rather insist on
tenses, but in fact our tenses are a mix of tense and
aspect. They are not always very clear neither.

Progressive aspect in French: "je suis en train de
regarder la télé" = I'm just watching TV. "Je mange"
can be "I eat" or "I'm eating", depending on the
context. Ex: tous les jours, je mange un sandwich à
midi = every day, I eat a sandwich at noon. But:
qu'est-ce que tu manges là ? = what are you eating
just now ?

Other funny idiomatic expressions:
- je vais m'en aller (I'm going to go = I'm about to
go = near future)
- je viens de partir (I'm coming from leaving = I just
left = near past)

--- Trebor Jung <treborjung@...> wrote:
> In school, we learned that <perdre> in French means
> 'to lose'. And I wondered if it was like 'I lost my
> money' or 'I am lost', so I asked the teacher 'Is
> <perdre> transitive or intransitive?'. She said it
> was transitive *, and now I'm wondering if
> transitivity, as in English, is not important - i.e.
> (in)transitive verbs have the same forms: 'I lost
> (something) vs. I lost my money'. Or maybe I should
> have thought about the <être> construction - <Je
> suis perdu> 'I'm lost'? (I'm just guessing on
> <perdu> - is that the correct form?)
>
> And the definitions: Does <J'ai regardé> mean 'I
> watched', 'I have watched', 'I had watched', or
> something else? ... If it's one, how do you form the
> others? ... And <regarder> itself, is it 'to watch
> (e.g. television)', 'to look after (e.g. my little
> brother - no, <garder>?)', 'to see/to notice (<voir>
> - 'to see' what, though?)', or what?
>
> And does French have a progressive aspect (at all)?
> The teacher says 'I eat' and 'I am eating' are the
> same thing.
>

=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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