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~ je ne sais où. et je ne savais où~ Hello :) I'm studying French and found some sentences that I don't understand perfectly. Could you please help? 1) On s'est retrouvé je ne sais où. Is this sentence correct? Some friends took a wrong train and arrived at a place they didn't know. So, one of them says as above remembering that day. I'm wondering if, [On s'est retrouvé je ne savais où.] or [On s'est retrouvé où je ne savais pas.] is not correct. Someone told me that [On s'est retrouvé je ne sais où.] is correct because the person didn't know at that time and don't know at the moment, either. 2) Elle m'a emmené je ne sais où. Same question. Is this sentence correct? How about [Elle m'a emmené je ne savais où.] or [Elle m'a emmené où je ne savais pas]? This person didn't know where she took him but we can imagine that now he knows where it was. I think [Je ne sais où elle m'a emmené.] is correct. Because he doesn't know NOW. Please help me. Thank you so much :)
Jun 27, 2015 4:03 AM
Answers · 8
2
1) The sentence is correct. It literally mean "we met, I don't know where". You would have write it like this: On s'est rencontrées je ne sais où" if all the participant were female. [On s'est retrouvé je ne savais où.] is technically correct, it literally mean "we met, I didn't knew where". It would actually mean that you were kind of lost when you met this person. [On s'est retrouvé où je ne savais pas.] would be: "we met, where? I didn't had a clue". There, the punctuation would be quite important. And the style is literature-ish. You would write it: "On s'est retrouvé. Où? Je ne savais pas." 2) This sentence is correct. "She took me I don't know where". Same reflexion for the two others. Since you want to express the fact that you "didn't knew" the location and suggest that you know it now, you would probably have to use a different tense: "Elle m'emmenait je ne savais où" (= "she was taking me I didn't knew where") which would be more directed to the action; if you use the participle past on the first part of the sentence and then you use the imperfect ("je ne savais où"), it could give a feeling of confusion. That's just some subtile matters, though, both of those sentence would be correct.
June 28, 2015
Hello Zinna, I cannot answer your question but I know that you need to add an e if you talk about yourself as a woman: Elle m'a emmenée. A boy would say "Elle m'a emmené." For the rest, let's wait for the comment of a native speaker... or somebody who remembers French grammar better than me :)
June 27, 2015
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