Why does this sentance (in french) have "not" in it twice?

Question

According to the program I'm learning french from, the proper way to say "No, it is not red. It is yellow." (talking about the color of a car) I'm supposed to say "Non, la voiture n'est pas rouge. La voiture est janue." If n'est means "is not", and pas means "not", then why do I need both in the same sentance?

Please forgive me if I spelled any of the french wrong.

Answer 1

French grammar is different from english.

For negation you need both words. ne .... pas =not
They are like a bracket around the negated verb.

you can vary the word "pas" to make different negations:

ne.... rien = nothing
ne... jamais= never
ne... plus = not anymore

Answer 2

Well actually, you need to use "ne" and "pas" together in French to negate the verb in your sentence (make the verb negative). "Ne" by itself in French doesn't really mean anything - see it as a necessary helper word that makes the "pas" (not) in your sentence make sense. In formal written French, you always place "ne" before the verb and "pas" after the verb to make it negative. It's just the grammatical rule. It may not make sense to you, but keep in mind that English has a lot of grammar rules that don't make a lot of sense, either.

A couple of French examples:

"Elle n'aime pas la voiture." (She does not like the car).
"Il ne parle pas beaucoup." (He does not talk a lot).

Note that when "ne" falls next to a verb that starts with a vowel, you drop the "e" and use an apostrophe instead (ex. n'aime).

All that being said, you may notice that French people leave out the "ne" in informal speech, saying something that sounds like:

"Il parle pas beaucoup."

In such informal cases, the "ne" is implied. You might look at this as being similar to English contractions. We don't always say "do not" and "cannot," but we shorten these to "don't" and "can't." However, especially when you are first learning, it is important that you use both "ne" and "pas" so you understand what constitutes formally correct French.

There are other small, informal phrases in which you can use "pas" on its own, but let's not bring this up here. It'd just get too confusing. You'll probably come to these later in your studies.

Someone else also gave you a couple of examples where "pas" is replaced by another word (ex. ne...jamais - Je ne fait jamais mes devoirs - I never do my homework). These are special cases that you'll probably want to hold off trying to understand until you've grasped ne...pas.

Good luck!

Answer 3

The negative in French has two parts to it. Is just the way it is. You have to use both to be correct, although spoken french sometimes omits the second part. The second part is not always pas, other negative words take its place (like jamais).

Answer 4

When you translate french to english or the opposite its weird because it doesn't sound right or look right. But the french always usually answer any question with no or yes and then explain why they gave you that answer. But it is correct the way you have it.

Answer 5

I think informal french sometimes omits "ne" in some sentences. I'm not totally sure about the whole thing though.

Answer 6

"ne ... pas" (the two words together, before and after the verb) means "not" in French. If you use "ne", you should also have "pas" after the verb.

Answer 7

Thats just the proper way you conjugate.