1

"A technician came to fix the light yesterday."

I think a natural translation of "came to fix" would be "venu réparer", without a preposition in between. Is that correct? Or should "pour" or "à" be inserted as well?

Un technicien est venu réparer la lumière hier.

Un technicien est venu pour réparer la lumière hier.

Un technicien est venu à réparer la lumière hier.

1 Answer 1

0

Came to fix can indeed be translated in est venu réparer, but also as est venu pour réparer. Both are correct, making your two first sentences correct. You can either use the one or the other to translate your original sentence.

The last sentence isn't correctly built though. Adding à wouldn't make any sense and would make your sentence incorrect. Pour is working because it is there to present a goal. In this sentence, the goal for the technician is to fix the light, so he came for that, pour ça.

So if we take another example, such as:

The woman came to buy some bread.

You could translate it as:

La femme est venue acheter du pain.

La femme est venu pour acheter du pain.

2
  • But we would say "J'ai passé deux heures à lire le livre" and not pour, right? Why is it different here?
    – user11550
    Oct 26, 2016 at 4:51
  • It will depend on your sentence. If we take this one and your original sentence organization, we would say: "Je suis venu ici pour lire un livre pendant deux heures." I came here TO do that. Here you are are talking about the achieved goal, so you would use pour. In your current sentence, we are not talking about the goal, but what was achieved during that time. If we translated the sentence, you would say: "I spent two hours reading that book." So à there is used to say what you have done, what you have used this time for.
    – Izuka
    Oct 26, 2016 at 9:53

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.