# FR: ainsi que le souligne



## SolangeC

*Ainsi que le souligne *seems to be a set legal phrase. The entire sentence says "Ainsi que le souligne le ministère public dans ses conclusions..."
My take (which makes no sense): Thus the Public Prosecutor emphasizes in his conclusions..."  Bleah.
I'll keep looking but sure would appreciate suggestions. Thank you.


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## coccinelle

Hi Solange, 
well your translation does not look that bad to me! "ainsi que le souligne" is not a legal phrase. It could be used in any kind of context, for example if you're commenting on an article, you could say 'comme le souligne l'auteur ...'
I would use "as" instead of "thus" to translate the sentence, maybe then it makes more sense (you're the English speaker, so you decide!) : As the Public Prosecutor emphasizes ... 
For me you could say the exact same thing using "comme" (it would even be the most natural way to say it, I guess) : comme le souligne le ministère public dans ses conclusions.


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## SolangeC

Ainsi que le souligne - I think it is the *LE* that stumps me. Why is it there? Would not "Ainsi que souligne le ministère dans ses conclusions" be sufficient? And thanks by the way.


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## PhPLive

Hi Solangec


The direct object pronom LE is mandatory here !
It's quite difficult to explain especially in English 

Let's consider a complete sentence :

 "Ainsi que le souligne *le* ministère dans ses conclusions, le chômage a augmenté."

[...]

Actually LE is for "le chômage a augmenté" ! 
It's the answer to the question : WHAT does ministry highlight ?

"LE" is mandatory because the subject ("le ministère") is placed after the verb
the position of the DOC ("le chômage a augmenté") doesn't matter.

If we split the sentence we can say :
Le chômage a augmenté. Ainsi que le souligne le ministère dans ses conclusions.

"LE" is mandatory too !


If we use a traditional form subject + verb +compl. :
Le ministère souligne dans ses conclusions que le chômage a augmenté.

"LE" has gone indeed !


Hope that helps


_______________________________
Please feel free to correct my English


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## SolangeC

Ainsi que le souligne *le* ministère dans ses conclusions, le chômage a augmenté."
Actually, it is the first LE that stumps me:  Ainsi que *le* souligne...
Why is this "le" here? Seems redundant  - it would be in English.


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## MargieL

I think that PhPLive meant to highlight the first "le" which is what the phrase "le chomage a augmente" refers to (pardon my lack of accents) rather than the second "le". The first "le" roughly translates to "it" and because it is a pronoun it is placed before the verb it refers to.


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## SolangeC

I'll have to think on it some more, and will just have to learn that this is how it is...Thank you everyone for the replies. I appreciate it.


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## Doude

No I think that PhPLive just made a mistake with the second "le" in bold : 



> Let's consider a complete sentence :
> 
> "Ainsi que *le* souligne *le* ministère dans ses conclusions, le chômage a augmenté."


 
His explanations are totally to explain the 1st one. I am a native french speaker, but I couldn't explain it as well as he did


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## ascoltate

"As ed by..." would be the usual translation of "Ainsi que le [souligne]..."

*I'm talking about the grammatical structure (you can choose "highlight" / "emphasize" or whatever verb you want to put in there...)


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## SolangeC

Still percolating on this one. To beat a dead horse... "Ainsi que *le* souligne le ministère public dans ses conclusions, la saisie des documents..." would seem to be translated literally as "As the public prosecutor emphasized *it* in his conclusions, the seizing of documents...", with the "it" being unnecessary. But the first LE is necessary in this case because... the subject comes after the prepositional phrase (since we don't yet know what the Pub pros is referring to)?


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## Doude

Yes, I know that in English it is unecessary, but in French, without it, it is completely false. That's the subtleties of French language 

It is really hard to explain why... It can be useful to quote (again) PhPLive :



> Actually LE is for "le chômage a augmenté" !
> It's the answer to the question : *WHAT does ministry highlight* ?
> 
> *"LE" is mandatory because the subject ("le ministère") is placed after the verb*
> the position of the DOC ("le chômage a augmenté") doesn't matter.


 

I think that when you use "*Comme*" you need almost in every case the verb, the subject and the DOC (le), even if you need the DOC after (le chômage a augmenté); so you have a choice :

-either you adapt the sentence and get rid of the comma : _"Le ministère public souligne dans ses conclusions que *le chômage a augmenté*"._

-or you keep the prepositional phrase : _"Comme le ministère public *le* souligne dans ses conclusions, le chômage a augmenté"._

Do you see my point?


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## ascoltate

SolangeC said:


> Still percolating on this one. To beat a dead horse... "Ainsi que *le* souligne le ministère public dans ses conclusions, la saisie des documents..." would seem to be translated literally as "As the public prosecutor emphasized *it* in his conclusions, the seizing of documents...", with the "it" being unnecessary. But the first LE is necessary in this case because... the subject comes after the prepositional phrase (since we don't yet know what the Pub pros is referring to)?



No, it's part of a more general French phenomenon. Some other examples :

"Comme vous le voyez dans l'exemple ci-dessous..." = "As you can see in the example below..."

"Comme vous pouvez le constater... = "As you can observe..."

I'm not sure of the exact rule, but in these constructions that translate to "As you can..." or "As can be..." or "As ...ed by..." in English, you always need to put in a "le" in the French version.


**I see Doude and I are pointing out the same phenomenon at the same time.


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## Doude

Yes ascoltate, I tried to explain the same phenomenon as you did 



> "Comme vous le voyez dans l'exemple ci-dessous..." = "As you can see in the example below..."
> 
> "Comme vous pouvez le constater... = "As you can observe..."


 
This seems to be a general rule for me either, and I think this examples are illustrating it well! I can't add anything else


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## PhPLive

Hi all

Yes I was talking about the first "LE" of course !

Sorry I've bolded the wrong one ! 

As I've already said it's difficult to explain.
I suppose there's a French grammar rule but I'm not expert. 
I needed to google just to remember that LE was a direct object pronom


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## SolangeC

Thanks so much all of you for the very good explanations. I appreciate the great feedback. Merry Christmas to all (and to all a Good Night!)


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