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I have heard that French people most of the time drop ne and sometimes they drop que.

Dropping the ne https://youtu.be/DKfwvE3WK1M?t=201

She don't say qui ne..., only qui...

Is it when when ne...pas is available?

Dropping the que https://youtu.be/DKfwvE3WK1M?t=56

He say ainsi ma trousse, not ainsi que ma trousse.

Question:

When should I drop the que and ne?

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    You're mishearing the last one, they've dropped the vowel of que, but the /k/ is present. Commented Apr 23, 2021 at 16:19
  • @Eauquidort No. He don't say "k" as "ansik".
    – euraad
    Commented Apr 23, 2021 at 16:25
  • 5
    @Daniel Listen carefully, Amir definitely pronounces ainsi qu'ma trousse. I don't know if there are cases where que is dropped in French, but this is not one of them.
    – jlliagre
    Commented Apr 23, 2021 at 16:52
  • I second @jlliagre here- it's hard to catch, but he does say "ainsi qu'ma". Commented Apr 23, 2021 at 17:31
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    Trying to think of times you would drop the whole word "que" and coming up short Commented Apr 23, 2021 at 17:32

1 Answer 1

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There's a difference between written and spoken French.

Written French

Ideally, in written French you would never drop any of those, unless you're talking in a really unformal context, like students or friends conversations. But even with friends, if you can avoid dropping words in writing, it won't hurt you and will definitely not make you seem too formal.

Spoken French

In spoken French, it gets tricky. You can pretty much drop the "ne" in most cases, even at work. I fail to find a sentence where dropping the "ne" would be an issue. If you need to show a very high amount of respect for the person you're talking to, don't drop it. Otherwise, it doesn't really matter.

The que, however, is not entirely dropped in most cases. In your example, as people said in the comments, the que is not dropped. ainsi que ma trousse becomes ainsi qu'ma trousse and the qu is almost silent. The two syllables of que ma merge into one syllable, which is why you can't hear the qu unless your ear is really trained for it. ainsi ma trousse doesn't make sense in French in that context, and that's why there is absolutely no doubt that the qu is pronounced here.

As opposed to the ne, there are very few instances where you can really drop the que in spoken French. One example that comes to mind would be qu'est-ce que becoming qu'est-ce. For example, in spoken French, it's not that rare hearing someone say qu'est-ce t'en penses instead of qu'est-ce que tu en penses.

That being said, if you don't drop the ne and you don't drop the que, you will not sound weird in most cases. People will notice you're not a native speaker anyway, so my advice, even though not asked for, would be to keep the ne and keep the que. That will help you with written French and you can always shorten things up later based on your conversations with native speakers.

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    Honore les grands, (ne) méprise les petits. Ou : (Que) veux-tu ?. L'idée d'affirmer si on peut omettre ou pas un mot indépendamment de sa nature, de son emploi ou de sa combinaison en locution est peu utile voire futile à mon avis et il faut plutôt qualifier l'emploi du mot pour déterminer si par exemple il constitue la seule particule de négation sur laquelle s'appuierait la phrase, et dans un tel contexte il serait surprenant que l'oral s'en passe davantage que l'écrit. Le fait qu'ainsi ma trousse ne corresponde pas au contexte n'explique pas le besoin d'avoir que pour la locution.
    – 0-One-0
    Commented May 1, 2021 at 6:12
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    @baied'euzellecité En effet, les transgressions verbales sont difficiles à encadrer de règles. C'est d'ailleurs pourquoi je suggère de conserver les mots à l'oral comme à l'écrit, puis d'adapter son langage avec l'expérience.
    – Marc Lamy
    Commented May 1, 2021 at 12:19

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