I'm learning French, and I saw something online which got me thinking. Below are three similar statements, all of which I think might work, but I'm not sure. Are these correct?
Je ne regrette pas rien.
Je ne regrette rien.
Je regrette rien.
I am also unsure whether the word 'rien' is masculine, or feminine. I know that words ending with '-ion' are feminine, but does that carry over to '-ien' endings?
Does the gender of the speaker influence the word 'regret/regrette'? Or is it the gender of the word 'rien'.
Can somone also please give me the translation for the three examples?
just to add some more confusion: "rien" can sometimes be used as a noun, in which case it would be masculine: e.g: je te donne un petit rien = <em>I give you a litlle "nothing</em>" (je te donne un petit cadeau)
Je ne regrette pas rien. X
Je ne regrette rien. O
Je regrette rien. O
They both mean "I don't regret anything." The first one is formal and the second one isn't. That doesn't necessarily mean it's colloquial, it can still be informal yet polite.
The word "rien" has no gender. It's an indefinite pronoun, not an actual substantive. For the simple present (indicatif présent), the only thing that influences the form of verbs in French is the grammatical person (je, tu, il/elle, nous, vous, ils/elles). Thus "je regrette" no matter the gender of the subject, object, etc.
if you want to have fun with that sentence follow the link below that is a popular song in France even if it is not the most recent
Hi Ebony,
I'm not a native french person, but I speak quite decent French, so let me help you:
Je ne regrette rien. = Formal and correct as you would write it meaning "I don't regrett a single part of it."
Je regrette rien. = informal, the way you would speak it (sometimes). French people tend to leave out the first part of the negation when speaking in an informal environment.
e.g.: Je suis pas stressé/e. = Je ne suis pas stressé/e.
Je ne regrette pas rien. = I never heart of this construction being correct. In school we used to be corrected when making a mistake like that. In my opinion this is not correct and I don't think it exists in French, but you never know what detail I might have overlooked or maybe it's some kind of dialect expression I'm not familiar with. Please aks a native speaker's opinion. (But I am super shure that you can't say that...)
Rien doesn't have a gender. It's not a noun. It stays the same in every combination, it does not change.
Be careful: ne rien = nothing, but in combination with a verb that is negated.
Blank space/nothing as a noun would be néant etc
Je n'ai pas le temps de faire XY.
Je ne vois personne.
Je n'ai rien compris.
--> These are ways to express negation. They don't care if they are used with femal or male words. They don't change!
If you want me to precise something, feel free to contace me again. I would love to answer further questions :)
Keep learning French! I belive you are doing great, because only those who can formulate a question have actually thought about the subject.
