FR: I wish that I had told my teacher something

B

blazerunner121

New Member
USA
America, Chinese, English, French
would i be albe to use sujonctif or should i keep it as passe compose? which would be grammatically right?

j'ai souhaité que [j'aie dit] le professeur.

ou

j'ai souhaité que [j'ai dit] le professeur.
 
    • I'm afraid neither of your sentence is correct in French... :eek:
    Could you give us your sentence in English? (I guess it's a structure such as "I wish I...).

    Your sentences are not correct because you can't use the subjonctive when you have twice the same subject: here "je". Instead, you have to employ an infinitive form:

    J'ai souhaité dire au professeur.

    But if the subject differs in the two parts of the sentence, you will use the subjonctive present:

    J'ai souhaité qu'il dise à son professeur.
     
    or maybe more: "j'ai souhaité avoir dit au professeur" (or "j'aurais aimé dire au professeur"), if you meant you wish you could have said sthg to the professor but it's too late now.
    But you can't leave the sentence like that, you need to precise what you wanted to say to the professor. Or you should use "parler" (=to speak) instead of "dire" (=to say).
     
    Last edited by a moderator:
    I think that "j'aurais aimé dire au professeur" is better...

    You can say:

    - J'aurais aimé le dire au professeur.
    - J'aurais aimé parler au professeur.
     
    Last edited by a moderator:
    yes, i think i was a little too vague. The sentence was: In my heart, I wish that I had told my teacher something.

    aurayfrance, in using that rule u said, then if i constructed this sentence, would it be right?: A mon coeur, j’ai souhaité qu’on aie dit "the teacher about it" (<--- dunno how to translate that exactly). *sighs* sujonctif is soooo hard to understand. :rolleyes: :confused:
     
    blazerunner121 said:
    yes, i think i was a little too vague. The sentence was: In my heart, I wish that I had told my teacher something.
    Click to expand...

    I was almost sure it was this structure "I wish I" that appears a bit complicated to French... :)

    You musn't repeat twice the same subject when using "wish":

    I wish I had told my teacher something
    J'aurais souhaité dire quelque chose à mon professeur (infinitive)

    I wish he had told his teacher something
    J'aurais souhaité qu'il dise quelque chose à son professeur (subjonctive)
     
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