3

I'm learning French on Duolingo. There is a sentence that goes

Tu peux m'en dire plus sur le mariage de ma mère ?

I understand that the meaning is “Can you tell me more about my mother's wedding?”

However, if I want to say that in my French, I would say it as follows:

Tu peux me dire plus sur le mariage de ma mère ?

I pasted the text into Google Translate and both sentences above give the same result:

Can you tell me more about my mother's wedding?

I haven't tried in Word or any other writing tool to check if my sentence is grammatically correct.

My question is:

1- Is my sentence correct in terms of grammar?

2- What are the differences in meaning between the two ways of speaking?

1 Answer 1

4
  1. Tu peux m'en dire plus sur le mariage de ma mère? (correct)
  2. Tu peux me dire plus sur le mariage de ma mère? (correct, the French idiomatic way is to presuppose that "plus" (more) is not enough; it could be "plus méchant", "plus étrange", etc., but there exists an absolute usage (no complement) and according to this, "en" is not needed; however the meaning is the same)
  • Tu peux m'en dire autant sur le mariage de ma mère? (understated: "des choses")

However, you wouldn't use "en" in the following (because the word "chose" is explicitly stated).

  • Tu peux m'en dire autant de choses sur le mariage de ma mère? (sounds awful and tends to show that "en" stands for "des choses")

  • Tu peux m'en dire plus sur le mariage de ma mère?

  • Tu peux m'en dire plus de choses sur le mariage de ma mère? (sounds awfully pleonastic)

  • Tu peux me dire plus de choses sur le mariage de ma mère? (correct)

1

Your Answer

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

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