Course content Course content

Getting started with French 2

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

More free courses

3 Expressing the negative

Have a go at Activity 3. After, you’ll look at how to form the negative in French.

Activity 3

Look at these three statements from the previous activity:

Lionel : J’aime beaucoup les fast foods.
Maryse : Je n’aime pas les fast foods.
Philippe: J’aime assez les fast-foods.

What is the grammatical clue that tells you that only Maryse doesn’t like fast food?

Feedback

In Maryse’s statement the words ‘ne’ and ‘pas’ appear on either side of the verb ‘aime’.

To form the negative in French, use ne before the verb and pas after the verb (ne becomes n’ in front of a verb starting with a vowel sound):

Elle n’aime pas les oignons. She doesn’t like onions.

Il n’est pas français. He is not French.

You can use ‘beaucoup’ and ‘du tout’ with ‘je n’aime pas’ to say how much you dislike something. If you use these words, they go after ‘ne ... pas’ in the sentence:

Je n’aime pas du tout la viande. I don’t like meat at all.

Il n’aime pas beaucoup la cuisine nord-africaine. He doesn’t like North African food very much.

Note that in informal spoken French, people often omit the ne:

Je n’habite pas en France. → J’habite pas en France. I don’t live in France.

Elle n’aime pas les sardines. → Elle aime pas les sardines. She does not like sardines.

To express your dislikes, you can also use the verbs ‘détester’ or ‘avoir horreur de’:

Elle déteste les champignons. She hates mushrooms.

J’ai horreur des fast-foods ! I can’t stand fast food!

Activity 4

Answer the following questions in the negative, using whole sentences and ne/n’… pas, as shown in the examples.

For example:

Il aime beaucoup le poulet ? – Non, il n’aime pas beaucoup le poulet.

Vous adorez la viande ? – Non, je n’adore pas la viande.